


swine

by king_wizard



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Sam, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Events, Angry Sex, Bottom Dean, Collars, Dark, Dark Sam, Drugged Sex, F/M, Forced Relationship, Knotting, M/M, Non-Consensual, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Omega Dean, Rape, Rape Recovery, Rough Sex, Top Sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/king_wizard/pseuds/king_wizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean isn’t like other Omegas: he doesn’t want to be claimed, mated, bred. Sam is exactly like other Alphas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline note: This is set in an AU of S1. Dean didn’t go to Sam to help him find John. Sam has remained at Stanford while Dean and John went through the events of S1. John still trades his life for Dean. Begins directly after John’s death.
> 
> A/B/O-verse note: This is an A/B/O-verse where Omegas have few legal rights and are low on the social totem pole.  
> • The general mindset regarding all statuses is similar to American gender constructs. That is, personality is determined by biological status. Omegas are thought to be nurturing, family oriented, and in need of a more practical and decisive Beta or Alpha to care for them. Omegas must have a legal Alpha or Beta guardian.  
> • Suppressants are available to them, but they require a prescription. Medical standards encourage Omegas not to remain on suppressants for long periods and most doctors won’t prescribe them to Omegas past their early 20’s.  
> • Suppressants are not designed for long-term use. Discontinuing use can result in abnormal heats and mood changes.  
> Alphas who hold very strict and derogatory views of Omegas are known as pigs.  
> • There is a small but growing social justice movement pushing for more legal rights and better social treatment. Pro-Omega rights activists run safe houses where Omegas can turn, but these safe houses are subject to police and anti-Omega rights raids.
> 
> Warning note: This is a very dark fic that features non-explicit and explicit rape and rape recovery. There are further consent issues, ranging from dub-ish-con to non-con. The brothers relationship is complicated by A/B/O biology, societal influence, and the boy’s individual viewpoints. Sam makes irrevocable choices that devastate Dean and their relationship. He is not endearing or likeable and his actions have no excuse. Dean is single mindedly devoted to continuing the family business and doesn’t consider any other life, regardless of whether or not he would be happy.

The morning of John’s funeral, Dean doesn't want to get out of bed.

Rosy fingers are tapping at the motel room window, warm California dawn seeping underneath the curtains. The sounds of life are buzzing through the walls: wind rustling the trees, conversation, laughter, ignitions lighting. Dean can smell the light in the air.  
  
His belly rolls, more hunger than heat. The soft swell of  _needwantneed_  is still sweeping under his surface, but the teeth have softened.   
  
This heat was the worst since his first year of puberty. He’d been expecting it. It's December 14th and it's only the second heat he's allowed himself this year. Stupid of him, but he and John had been close enough to smell the Yellow Eyed Demon's stench. He'd barely had the time to brush his teeth before John was dragging him across another state line; he couldn't spare the three or four days it would take him to find a female Alpha  _(or two)_  to work him through a heat.  
  
Losing John had slowed Dean down. He lost Yellow Eye's path under a blur of smoke and grief. The reckless pain and want of a delayed heat had called to his wounds. He'd lost himself in it: the need, the splitting ache, the raw burn.  
  
And he had been burned.  
  
He presses his palms to his eyes, wonders if he can bury the night before somewhere so deep the memories of Sammy's betrayed eyes and scent will never surface.  
  
A knock at the door startles him from his attempts at repression. He knows instantly who’s on the other side.  
  
"Dean. You awake?"  
  
Dean doesn't want to open the door.  
  
Sam knocks and calls his name again. Dean digs his nails into the comforter.  
    
"I know you're there, Dean. I can smell..." Sam trails off. Dean can hear Sam's frustration in the silence. His own still, quiet anxiety rushes in his ears. "I hate how we left things last night. Please, Dean. I just want to talk."  
  
Dean bites his lip. He knows what Sam wants, and it’s not to talk. He doesn't want to hear what Dean has to say.  
  
"Okay. If you're gonna be stubborn, I swear to God I'll egg the Impala. Stink bomb it. Let a cat piss in the vents."  
  
Before Dean realizes he's moved, he's at the door, fingers trembling as he cracks it open.  
  
The sight of Sam after four dark, Sam-less years takes his breath away. His not-so-little brother has grown mountainous, tall and sturdy, shoulders broad enough to block out the sun and muscles sleek enough to cut. The gentle light that always flickered in his fox slanted, fox clever eyes is golden and glittering in the morning sun. He's beautiful in his strength, in the sweet heart Dean can still see on his sleeve.  
  
Dean swallows hard, inhales Alpha. The smell isn't as enticing or terrifying as it was last night, but Dean's heat has chilled significantly. Sam still smells better than he should. He always has.  
  
There is a softer scent swirling sickly sweet along it. It's not unfamiliar, but Dean can't place the smell until Sam reveals a bundle of white roses.  
  
He hesitates only a moment before sliding the lock chain and stepping back.  
  
"I don't have a vase," are the first words Dean can think to speak.   
  
Sam shifts on his feet. "I know white roses are...calming, for mourning Omegas. I figured with you still in estrus, they'd - "  
  
"Thanks," Dean repeats, tone sharper. He tries to calm his breathing, focus on the cold stems in his hand instead of the anger pulsing in him  _(he's not a poor little Omega who needs fucking flower scent to feel better; he's not like soft, domestic Omegas; he's not this thing Sammy sees him as now)_. "I'm headed out to the cemetery soon. If you're still not coming, you can - "  
  
Sam moves closer. Only one step, but it feels as if a world has collapsed between them. Instinctively, Dean takes a step back. He wants to slap himself for the automatic submission. Over the years, he’s trained his brain to tune out most Omega instincts, but sometimes he can’t suppress his reactions.  
  
Doesn’t mean he’s ruled by his hormones, though. Doesn’t mean the pigs are right about him.  
  
"I know things didn't exactly end well last night. But c'mon, man. A fight doesn't mean I can turn my back on family."  
  
Dean stops himself from snorting  _never stopped you before_.  
  
He manages to check his bitterness as Sam steps tentatively closer. "He was the Alpha that sired me. Even if I don't agree with everything he did...he was still that. I'd like to come to the service. It's - I'll regret it, if I don't. I'm not going to let that man cause me anymore regrets."  
  
Dean releases a breath. "Okay. Just - give me a second to brush my teeth, get my shit together. I can meet you there in ten."  
  
When he turns towards the bathroom, Sam's giant hand reaches for his shoulder. He startles out of the touch and turns, flashing hard eyes and indignation and anger.  
  
"Don't.”  
  
Sam's expression is gentle, if slightly exasperated. "I'm here to go to the service," Sam says. "But I'm not just here for me. I'm trying to be here for you too."  
  
"Be there for me outside, then.”  
  
"We have to talk."  
  
"We got nothing to talk about."  
  
"Really? Nothing to talk about? We have everything to - "  
  
"Then I got nothing to say!"  
  
Sam's already infuriatingly gentle gaze softens even further. "Dean," he says, plaintive and sweet, as if he's talking to a child. Which he thinks he is, of course. Omegas, like children, are fragile creatures, only to be handled with quiet voices and gentle hands. "You just lost your Alpha. You're an Omega on your own, not mated, not - "  
  
"So I'm fucking helpless.” Dean’s throat aches with a rough laugh. "You never used to think that, y'know. You never thought I couldn't take care of you."  
  
"I don't think that now.”  
  
Dean snorts. Sam is lying and doesn't even realize it. His biases and privileges are too internalized, buried too deep in that big knotbrain of his.  
  
"I know you can take care of me. But you were never any good at taking care of yourself. I always thought it was some...fucked up sense of responsibility Dad brainwashed into you. But it's your nature, putting yourself last. If I'd known - "  
  
"Then what?" Dean asks, defensive and raw. "You wouldn't have left?"  
  
"No," Sam answers in dark whisper that makes Dean's spine buzz cold and makes his heat lurch low in his belly. Sam inhales, scents the air, the low-grade need deep in Dean's skin, and steps closer. "I still would have left. I just would have taken you with me."  
  
And there it is, sudden and inescapable: why Dean tried so desperately to drill family as the highest connection in Sam's brain, why he threw himself into protecting his baby brother, why he never told Sam he was an Omega.  
  
He doesn't know how to look it in the face. He doesn't know if he can breathe in a room where everything fucked up between them is out in the open.   
  
Slowly, as if Sam doesn’t want to spook him, Sam asks, “Do you have any idea how different things could’ve been if I’d known?"  
  
Dean takes a very deep, numb breath. “Yeah.”  
  
He's shaking, exhausted, and he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to acknowledge the looming thing between them. He doesn't want to bring to light the shadow that's been breathing down his neck since a six-year-old Sammy, who just learned all about Alphas, Betas, and Omegas, declared he wanted Dean to be his Omega when they grew up. He doesn't want to lose his brother again.  
  
He falls to the edge of the bed, his face in his hands.  
  
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Dean can hear the shaking sorrow in the question; he can smell the rumblings of anger still pulsing in Sam’s skin.  
    
"I didn't tell you - " Dean starts. He tries to gather his nerves, fails, barrels through anyway. "I didn't tell you because I knew exactly how'd you react, Sam. I mean… Christ. You weren't exactly subtle."  
  
Something like shame, maybe doubt, flickers over Sam’s face. It's gone in a moment.   
  
Nervous, Dean licks his lips before continuing. "I saw it, y'know. After you busted in here last night, I saw it the second you realized what I was. The picket fence, the rugrats, me with a kid in each arm and a bun in the oven. I saw it all in your eyes. And then when you said – “  
  
"I said a lot of things,” Sam interrupts. “I was angry.”  
  
"Because you thought you'd missed out!” Dean snaps. "You've been wishing our entire lives I was an Omega, and when you realized I was, you were pissed because you missed years of sticking your knot in me."  
  
Dean's breathing heavily, outburst leaving him feeling strange and too hot. Hurt is blooming in Sam’s features, and it aches, deeper than Dean imagined hurting his brother would ache. But as Dean takes another gasping breath, he can smell the salt of Sam's sweat running hotter, can smell the fantasies his careless words paint in his little brother's knotbrain.  
  
"Of course I was pissed," Sam says eventually. "I did miss years -  _years_ , Dean. But it's not about  _knotting_. I missed years of having what I needed, giving you what you need. Years we could've been happy together. And you just - you just kept us from having that."  
  
"Kept  _you_  from having that." Dean drops his gaze to floor as he searches for the right words to say. "It's never - don't ever think that I didn't want you to be happy, Sammy. Never that. It's the only thing I ever wanted."  
  
"But I wanted to be happy with  _you_. Only you. And I could’ve been, if Dad hadn’t done this to you."  
  
It’s a can of fanged, hungry worms Dean knows he shouldn’t open, but he can’t keep his mouth shut. “What exactly do you think Dad did to me?”  
  
“He hurt you. He abused you.”  
  
"Oh for fuck's sake, Sam." Anger rushes Dean’s veins and he stands, body buzzing. "He wasn't abusing me. He was treating me like an actual  _person_ instead of a bitch.”   
  
"He took advantage of you. He manipulated your instincts to make you a perfect little soldier and didn't give you anything you needed. He took your home away, your rights - "  
  
" _Rights_?” Dean laughs as he shrugs past Sam. His brother turns with him, keeping them face to face. “What kind of  _rights_  do you think Omegas have?"   
  
"How about a right to a steady home? To education, health care, an Alpha who would take care of you instead of an Alpha that forced you to hurt yourself.”

  
Dean's making a beeline for the door, ready to get the fuck out of this too small room with Sam's too small view, with Sam's too big body and too much scent, when Sam hisses, "He made you suppress your heats."  
  
Dean pauses one foot from the door.   
  
"No, he didn't.” He turns to face Sam as he continues. "When I had my first heat, it was... It wasn't as bad as some, but it wasn't good. And it sure as Hell didn't fit with what we were doing. It put us in danger, Sam, put other people in danger. It was my idea to start taking suppressants."  
  
"Oh, yeah, and I'm sure Dad put up a helluva fight with you on that. Did he even take you to a doctor, or did he just get some pills from someone on the street? Did he swipe 'em? Did he make you?"  
  
"Sam - "  
  
"Did he read any of the research on suppression?" Sam presses, heedless of Dean's warning tone. "Did he know that if an Omega doesn't have at least three heats a year their hormones, their ability to carry children - "  
  
"Which is why I give myself four."  
  
The words shut Sam right the fuck up. Dean sighs and paces back into the room. He leans against the dresser, staring at his shoes as Sam stares at him incredulously.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I let myself have four heats a year. Last time I saw someone at one of those free clinics, they said I was fine.”  
  
"So last night,” Sam says in ugly understanding “That wasn't your first - ?"  
  
"Visit to the Alpha rodeo?" Dean finishes. "No."  
  
"How the Hell could you have been in estrus without me noticing? How could you hide that from me?"  
  
"Always made sure you weren't around. It was only four times a year. Not actually that hard to swing.”  
  
Sam’s fists are clenched at his sides when Dean finally drags his gaze up, up, up his brother’s body.  
  
“Sam,” he whispers, pitching his voice to the soothing register he smoothed over Sam and his father to placate their raging emotions. “I’m not the Omega you want. I can’t be.”  
  
"You can," Sam insists earnestly. "It's who you are. You've just been steered in such a wrong direction - "  
  
“You gonna steer me back, huh?” Dean shakes his head. “You really think that’s what I need? An Alpha to guide me, take care of me, knot me until I’m a good little house Omega who only cares about pot roast and neighborhood gossip?”  
  
Eyes flashing, Sam crosses his arms over his chest. It adds another layer of strength to his body, an illusion that he’s looming and inescapable. Voice low and even, Sam says, "That's exactly what you need."  
  
Rage and humiliation snap then burst. Dean has to look away, clench his teeth, push himself away from the dresser and Sam before he explodes.  
  
"The pastor's gonna be there in half an hour," Dean says flatly. "I'm gonna brush my teeth."  
  
"We're not done here,” Sam tells him. He sounds firm, authoritative. He sounds just like their father.  
  
-  
  
When Dean was 17, there was a vampire nest in Topkea that liked to party and glut themselves on Omega blood.  
  
Among the chained, limp bodies of their victims, Dean found Mary Louise Marsters. She was 24-years-old and pregnant with her fifth child when she was taken. As Sam knelt to free her ankles, Dean had stared at her rounded stomach with wonder.  
  
There had been so many questions buzzing through his mind as he worked at the bounds around her wrists. Her bones had seemed so fragile, so much more breakable than his own. His body wasn't frail or soft or beautiful, wasn’t anything like the other Omegas he’d seen, like the Omega in his arms.  
  
He remembers she couldn’t stop sobbing, couldn’t stop shaking, jerking at the brush of their fingers, even when she realized they were there to help.  
  
"Dean. Get her neck," Sam had said.  
  
Dean had just gaped at him before Sam, annoyed, stood. His hand was gentle on her shoulder, but as he began to slide his fingers towards the nape of her neck, she screamed. Dean had snatched Sam's hand in a bone crushing grip.  
  
"The fuck are you doing, Sammy? Can't you see she's freaked out enough?"  
  
"Yeah, I can see she's freaked out! That's why we gotta calm her down. So just...hold her, okay, until I can work these off."  
  
Dean had ignored him. Instead, he'd cupped Mary Louise's face, humming  _Smoke on the Water_  under his breath until she calmed enough to look him in the eyes. "You're gonna be okay. You're safe now. We're gonna get you back to your family."  
  
She cried out, and her trembling hands dug into Dean's jacket. "No. You can’t take me back to him, you can’t."  
  
"Dean! Get her neck. She's - "  
  
"Kill me. Don't take me back, just kill me, please."  
  
Horrified, Dean had stepped away. Sam had grabbed her neck, held her still enough to walk her to their father's arms. John drove her to the police station while she stared dead out the window.  
  
“We can’t let him take her to the cops. They’ll take her home. Did you see how terrified she was?”  
  
"She's traumatized, Dean," Sam had reasoned. "She probably thinks her Alpha was one of the vamp's. Right now, she needs her Alpha more than ever."  
  
"She wanted to die, Sammy. She didn’t want her Alpha; she wanted to die.”  
  
"Omegas don't know what they want."  
  
Sam had said the words with such a solemn surety that for a moment, Dean hadn't been able to find the sweet soul of his precious baby brother, the one he was supposed to protect above all others. For a moment, all Dean could see was a pig.  
    
-  
  
The service is short. Pastor McCleary reads a few passages, says a few blessings, recites a few psalms. He asks if either Sam or Dean would like to speak a few words. Dean doesn't; he told Dad everything he needed when he was in the hospital, waiting to die, unaware that his father had sold his soul to a devil.  
  
Sam, apparently, does.  
  
"Dad," he begins, clenching and unclenching his fists. "I don't...I really don't know what to say."  
  
"Speak what's in your heart, son."  
  
Sam laughs, soft and awkward, and shakes his head. "I don't think that's really appropriate for a funeral." He takes a breath before continuing. "I didn't understand you. I didn't understand why you raised us the way you did. I hated it. But you were my Alpha. You kept me safe, I guess, even though you're the one who was putting me in danger. And you kept Dean safe. Alive. I'll always be grateful for that."  
  
Then Sam is nodding and stepping away, falling back to Dean's side. Years of caretaking, looking out for Sammy, has Dean clapping his brother on the shoulder. With a relieved smile, Sam lays his hand on top of Dean’s and squeezes. His grip is stronger than Dean remembers.  
  
-  
  
After the service, Sam is speaking with Pastor McCleary, and Dean is leaning against the Impala, watching leaves dance over his father’s grave.  
  
His palms are itching for the wheel. He's more than ready to get back to the motel, dump Sam off and speed to the open road.  _(Not so ready to leave Sam, be alone again, but he can, he’s strong and he doesn’t need an Alpha, doesn’t need Sammy, doesn’t, doesn’t.)_    
  
He glances at Sam and the pastor, catching sight of a stack of papers in Sam's hand. There's a pen in the other. The pastor reaches for it, and a dull understanding echoes in Dean's head.  
  
"Hey," he calls, moving towards them with brisk steps.  
  
Sam's expression is a mix between caught and I-dare-you-to-stop-me. It's the same look he wore when he was caught rifling through John's journals, messing with artifacts and books he shouldn't have been reading. Dean snatches the papers. "Dean," his brother sighs, but anything he has to say becomes white noise as Dean reads the boldfaced font.  
  
 _ **Bill of Authority of Rights**_  
  
 _Power of Authority regarding the Rights, Actions, Effects and Personhood of the statused Omega will hereby be transferred..._  
  
He skims the paper, finding his name, scrawled in his father's handwriting, on the statused Omega line. His heart stops when he sees Sam's name scribbled next to the new statused Alpha.  
  
As he stares at the flimsy sheets that hold the power of Dean's entire identity and history and future, that now mark Dean as Sam's legally owned Omega, he begins to shake.  
  
His immediate reaction is to rip the bill to shreds, but even if he tears the papers apart, their words won't be any less binding; he won't be any less bound.  
  
"No." He stares at the words until they begin to blur, black lines becoming a black hole becoming a black abyss, swallowing him whole. " _T_ he fuck is this?"  
  
"Calm down," Sam tells him - orders him. "Dean, calm down. Breathe."  
  
"Calm - ? How can I be calm about this?”  
  
His chest is moving violently though he's barely breathing, lungs empty and cold. He throws the papers to the ground with a snarl. Unsure of what else to do, he moves towards Sam, brain numb as he reaches for the lapels of his jacket.  
  
"Car," Dean grits. "Now."  
  
He turns, expecting Sam to fall in step behind him. Instead, Sam seizes his upper arm and begins pushing him towards a mountainous oak.  
  
"Hands off the damn merchandise."  
  
Dean keeps grumbling, batting ineffectually at his little brother's massive frame, but Sam just pushes and pulls until Dean is backed into bark.  
  
"Dammit, Sam." Dean tries to shove his brother away. He manages to dislodge Sam's grip from his shoulders, but Sam's hands immediately fly to his wrists.   
  
" _No_ ," Sam grunts, slamming Dean back. He squeezes Dean's wrists, and Dean gasps at the feeling of Sam's rough fingers, so large and strong they make Dean feel delicate, the way Omegas are supposed to be. His heat flushes as Sam pins his arms above his head. Rage flares along with it.  
  
Pressed against each other, breathing heavily, Sam's scent swims in Dean's head, fogging it.   
  
"It's been years, Dean. _Years_  - " accompanied by another squeeze, so much strength and anger in Sammy's fingers  " - we could've been together, been happy. Do you even get how much time we've lost and now - "  
  
"But we  _haven't_ ," Dean insists. "Sammy, we wouldn't...we never would've had what you think we would've. And we won't now. Nothing's changed.”  
  
Sam stares at him, incredulous and sea-eyed. "Everything's changed. How can you not see how perfect this is?”  
  
Dean snorts in disbelief. "Right. Perfect."  
  
"I know you don't think you want the apple pie life. But would...do you really think it'd be so bad? Being mine?"  
  
The last words are spoken so quietly, so heartbreakingly softly, Dean wants to tug Sam into his arms and soothe him until the sorrow has been seeped from his bones. _(Dean wants to tell him no, Jesus Sammy, of course not.)_  
  
But he can't.  
  
"Yes," Dean breathes.   
  
Sam clenches his jaw, tightens his grip on Dean's wrists, and presses himself closer. His face is wild, dark and crackling like a storm Dean won't withstand. "Liar," he hisses. "You're such a - you're such a jerk, Dean. You know you love me. Want me."  
  
Dean doesn't though. He loves Sam, not the way brothers love brothers, but not the way Omegas love Alphas, either. And he doesn't want Sam. The heat in his flesh, the blood pumping hot to his cock, the ache in his asshole, is a biological response. ( _It has to be_.)  
  
He doesn't feel the way Sam thinks he does.  _(He doesn't he doesn't he doesn't.)_  
  
"I knew this wouldn't be easy. Even when it was just a fantasy, dreaming up something that made you a Beta...Omega... And last night, when I was trying to think of what to say, I knew you were gonna be a bastard." Sam huffs a laugh against Dean’s cheek, leans more weight against him. "My stubborn little Omega.”  
  
Dean can hear the soft smile in Sam's voice. It stings, needles in Dean's neck, and he renews his struggles.  
  
"Not little," Dean grunts as he twists. "Not  _yours_."  
  
The snarl spurs Sam into action. He digs his thumb into the tender of Dean's wrists. While Dean winces, Sam transfers both wrists to one mammoth hand, then pinches the back of Dean's neck with the other. The pressure halts Dean's frenzied limbs instantly.   
  
"You are," Sam growls. "I'm not blaming you for being like this. Dad fucked you up. Fucked up both of us. And I'm sorry you don't see how happy we can be. I really, really am. But I lost so many years with you already, and I'm not losing any more."  
  
The wheels are turning fierce in Dean's head, trying to roll words that will make Sam see. And he has to make Sam see, has to, or Mom and Dad and all those innocent people died for nothing; Dean lived for nothing.  
  
"Are you listening to me, Dean? I won't."  
  
"I can't. What you want... I  _can't_ , Sam. I can't be yours, can't stop hunting, can't let people die."  
  
Sam's face softens. The grip on his neck eases. Dean sighs as his muscles go lax.  
  
"I know Dad made you think it was all up to you. But it's not. There are other people who can fight." Sam sighs as he cups Dean's cheek. "You're not made for this. Omegas need a stable home. A place to raise a family. No stress, no violence, no extreme exertions. I don't know how you've made it this long, but your body can't take much more of it. You're gonna fall apart."  
  
"That's bullshit!" Dean spits. His eyes are trembling, wide and imploring Sam to remember him outside of his Omega status. "You've seen what I can do. That - all that about what Omegas need, that's just bullshit. And, fuck, even if it was all instinctive, it doesn't matter. I'm not like other Omegas."  
  
"Really?" Sam trails his hand until his palm is resting on Dean's throat. "So what exactly is it that's got you so hard?" Dean gasps as Sam slides his thigh between Dean's, pressing against his aching dick. "I can smell you. How wet you are, just from being so close to me. But you’re not like other Omegas, right Dean? So this isn’t because I'm an Alpha, because you're in heat? It’s gotta be just because you want me so bad."  
  
Sam's hand wedges its way between Dean's back and the tree. Dean tries to buck against the force of his brother's body, but it only adds a delicious pressure to the swell of his cock, gives Sam the room to slide his palm under Dean's jeans and palm his ass.  
  
"You're exactly like other Omegas. You need an Alpha. To take care of you, give you a home, knot you..."  
  
Dean is going to argue, but then Sam's fingers slide through warm slick. The tip of Sam's index finger finds his hole, stupid and leaking and empty. Dean tries to clench his ass, his thighs, keep Sam from proving how he can play Dean's Omega biology. Then Sam nips his throat, and the sharp burst of pleasure melts Dean's defenses. His eyes shoot wide and shocked as Sam slides inside.  
  
"Fuck, you feel - " Sam growls. All Dean manages is a breathy sort of whimper-whine. Sam's finger is so big; so much bigger and rougher and better than any of the soft, dainty fingers girls have pushed inside him. "So hot. So fucking wet. Could knot you now. Just turn you around and show you."  
  
If Sam would just stop fingering him - so shallow and teasing and maddening - he could push him away. He could show Sam he's not a slave to his instincts, show Sam he's not the Omega all the pigs in the world think he is.  
  
But Sam's not stopping. He's just moving his finger in and out, slow and steady, and breathing filth against Dean's ear.  
  
"Please," Dean finds himself begging, writhing in his own shame.  
  
"S'okay," Sam whispers, kissing the sensitive skin of his throat. "Gonna get you back to the motel, okay, take care of you, and then we'll - "  
  
Dean shakes his head. "Please,  _Sammy_ , stop. Stop.”  
  
Sam stills. For one dizzy, deaf moment, Dean thinks he's not going to stop. He's not going to stop and Dean won't be able to make him.   
  
Then Sam huffs and pulls his finger from Dean's body. Dean nearly falls at the loss, but Sam slings an arm around his middle to keep him upright.  
  
"I'm not like other Alphas," Sam says softly.   
  
Dean almost laughs, but he's too busy biting his cheek, searching for blood. He's trying to catch his breath as Sam's hands move to his chest. He can smell himself on Sam's skin.  
  
With a low growl, Dean finally manages to shrug away from Sam's attention and stand on his own. He watches his brother for several long, quiet moments, only the wind disturbing the stillness and silence.  
  
No matter how deeply Dean looks, he can't find what he wants to see.  
  
"You think you're so progressive. You talk about Omega rights and needs like you're different, but Sammy...you're a pig. Just like the rest of them."  
  
A silence settles, heavy and sour, between them.   
  
"I'm going to talk to the Pastor," Sam says. "He'll sign the bill. Then we'll head back to the motel."  
  
"Sammy," Dean tries, desperate. Sam is turning around, walking towards the pastor, ignoring Dean. "Don't - you don't need a bill, okay? It's not gonna make me the Omega you want me to be."  
  
"The Omega you are," Sam says, stopping but not turning around.  
  
Dean can see his options, his freedoms and responsibilities, tumbling through the air. Grip slipping, he searches for anything that could stop Sam from taking another step.  
  
"How does Jess feel?" he calls, feeling nauseous. "About all this, I mean? You gonna have her sign the papers too? Co-Beta owner?"  
  
"Jess has always known I've been in love with someone I couldn't have. When I walked in on you last night…” His explanation trails into the wind. “She's staying with a friend."  
  
Shocked, Dean can only stare at the back of his brother's head.   
  
"I told you, Dean. I'm not like other Alphas. You're the only one I want."  
  
-  
  
A few months after Dean turned 18, his father drug him to a court house in Indiana with a forged but accurate birth certificate and a fake list of shots, schools, and previous addresses.  
  
John had opted to require legal and spiritual confirmation for a transfer of Dean's rights. After they'd slid back into the Impala, John told him that if there was a day when someone could claim him, he had to find Pastor Jim. Pastor Jim had the power of the Catholic church behind him, John had explained; he knew people who could protect Dean as an Omega and a hunter.  
  
Dean drums his fingers on the wheel and doesn’t think about that day. Instead he focuses on the  _purse_ \- no matter how many times Sam calls it a messenger bag, it's a god damn purse - in the passenger seat. He debates only for a moment before reaching for it.  
  
"Gonna be an Alpha dick, Sammy," he says indignantly to himself. "Fine. I'm gonna be an Omega bitch."  
  
He knows he won't find anything interesting, but it will piss Sammy off that he was snooping, and that's good enough for Dean.   
  
The first thing that catches his eye is a glint in the corner. Without a guess as to what the shine could be, he reaches inside. Slowly, he pulls the collar into the light.  
  
It's two inches wide but thin, black, with a small silver D-ring on the front.  It's standard; something Sam could've picked up at the court house or Costco.  
  
Clearly Sam thought he needed it immediately; he didn't even take the time to go to a shop. Dean doesn't know what it means. Is this preparation for the shit fit Sam knew Dean would eventually pitch? Is it punishment for years of silence? Does Sam want him to wear it always, in public, at home? Does Sam just want to fuck him with this ownership around Dean's throat?  
  
Dean glances out the window to see Sam and Pastor McCleary chatting solemnly. Probably about stubborn Omegas, Dean thinks with a rush of impotent rage. He drops his gaze back to the collar. Even the feel of it in his hands is suffocating. He can't imagine what it will feel like around his neck.  
  
He doesn’t think he’ll stick around to find out.  
  
-  
  
Sam is in Oregon when Dean goes back to California.  
  
It’s been getting more difficult to keep Sam three steps behind him, which makes Dean proud as much as it frustrates him, but he caught a break in Arizona and got a little insider information. It’ll take Sam at least a week to make it to San Francisco, and Dean will be two states up by then.  
  
The game is a little too close to the mating chase he’d learned about in Status Studies. He wonders if Sam thinks about the chase the same way. Dean running, making Sam prove he’s a worthy Alpha, driving Sam mad with the chase, driving Sam to claim him rough and complete when he's finally caught.   
  
 _(He tries not to think about it, but when he does, his stomach flips hot then cold and he gets so wet he can smell himself.)_  
  
-  
  
There's only time Dean allows himself to think about it.  
  
It’s barely spring but it’s barely spring in Texas, and everything is sweet scented and warm. The night is black hole blue. There are so many stars in the sky, Dean feels small and fragile; feels like an Omega.  
  
Dean closes his eyes and imagines Yellow Eyes smoky spirit dissipating into the ether. He imagines Meg – demon bitch had a name – bleeding out onto his hands the same way Pastor Jim did, but he winces and yanks his daydreams from the thought.  
  
Killing doesn’t offend his delicate sensibilities _(he’s fine, no mental trauma, and he doesn’t drink that much)_  but sometimes it feels like all the blood he's spilled is spurting in his brain. Sometimes Dean just needs a second to get clean again.   
  
His wonders wander to Sam. He could let Sam find him after finally avenging their mother and father. Maybe he could show Sam that the world needed him to hunt. Maybe he could even convince Sam to come with him. They could be together then. Not exactly the way Sam wanted them to be, not as mates, but as brothers.  
  
Maybe as something more than brothers.  
  
Dean flushes at the thought. He doesn't feel what Sam thinks he feels, but he can't shake the heat from his cheeks. He can’t think past the memory of Sam’s scent, the feeling of his almost-kisses and his full, thick finger in Dean’s ass, and the way Sam whispered about how happy they could be.  
  
Dean bites his lip. He and Sam aren’t going to go off on a hunting adventure across the United States. They aren’t going to have a platonic soul mate road trip to save the world. They’re not going to fuck without mating, not going love and need and want each other without a collar around Dean’s throat. He’s either Sam’s Omega, or he’s Sam’s nothing.  
  
He doesn’t think about it again.

 


	2. Two

A demon working with Yellow Eye's leads Dean to a cemetery in Northeastern Missouri. There's a door there, it says, a door to Hell. Dean isn't sure if he buys it, but he knows Yellow Eye's does.   
   
Dean is driving with the demon trussed in the passenger seat. It's weak - half a bottle of Holy water and some crude cuts really drain a demon's energy - but Dean keeps his eye on it. There are lines of blood on its face, and even though Dean carved the wounds himself, his stomach curdles at the sight.    
   
Sam would say it’s his Omega instincts: his open, nurturing nature curdling at the thought of inflicting pain. It’s not. He’s not too delicate to splash Holy water on a demon and watch it’s skin sizzle; he just likes the line between himself and the monsters he fights to be wider.  
   
As soon as they get to the cemetery, the demon tries to escape.  
   
Dean opens his door, and the demon springs after him, wriggling like a particularly lively worm until he falls at Dean's feet.   
   
Dean rolls his eyes - demons never learn - but when he leans to prop it against the Impala, it bites him, teeth drawing blood, and kicks his ankles with greater force than Dean was prepared for. He goes down hard.  
   
"Son of a bitch,” Dean curses, just before a bullet flies into the demon’s chest.  
   
Dean crawls back as the demon writhes. When it goes still, he raises his gaze to the direction of the shot. He's more surprised than he should be.  
   
“Hey, Sammy.”  
   
Before Sam can respond, the stench of rotten eggs and sulfur intensifies. Sam’s body jerks then flies into a nearby tree. Dean scrambles to his knees, but he doesn’t get further before something cold and leaden drops his between his shoulder blades, pinning him to the ground.  
   
“You found him just in time to die together,” Meg says as she slinks into the night. Dean snarls – fuckin’ demon  _bitch_ , popping up everywhere  – and clenches his fists as she drops to her knees by Sam’s heaving body. “How sweet.”

 

When Dean tries to surge against the unseen pressure, he’s yanked from lying face first in the cemetery ground to his back.

  
“Get offa me, demon bitch.”  
   
“Now that’s not any way to speak to an old friend.”  
   
Dean stills. It’s a different voice, a different throat, but the demon controlling the body is the same he’s been chasing his entire life.  
   
God dammit. He walked straight into an ambush.  
   
Yellow Eyes crouches next to him, its foulness spilling over his body. “It really is a coinkidink that Sam finally caught up to you tonight, huh? Lucky for you, some very nice young woman in Kansas helped him find you.”  
   
“You’re welcome, by the way,” Meg calls.  
   
Dean’s mind is reeling. He has no idea how the fuck to get out of this, but he knows the night isn’t ending without a bullet in Yellow Eye’s brain. The Colt is resting below his palm. If he can just push the demon’s force away, just for a second, he can turn and shoot it right between the eyes. All he needs is a distraction.  
   
A rumble echoes through the night. Suddenly bright lights are flashing, blinding him, and the rumble intensifies.   
   
Dean lifts his chest, trying to peer past the demon whose turned its neck from Dean to whatever is happening behind them. His eyes are squinting in the gleam of light - headlights, it’s a car - when he realizes he's just lifted his chest, that he's still holding himself up - that he can  _move_.   
   
By the time Yellow Eyes comes to the same realization, it’s too late. Dean is aiming the Colt at when it turns to him.  
   
"Go back to Hell.”   
   
He pulls the trigger and watches black explode from the sorry son of a bitch Yellow Eyes had been wearing. It seems like a dream.  
   
-  
   
Dean hears shouts - the people in the car, Meg, Sammy - but it's as if they're coming from all around him. The sky, the ground, the air. He blinks at the night, but he can't understand it.   
   
A touch of warmth kisses Dean's shoulder. He looks up to find Sammy kneeling next to him.  
   
"Sammy?"   
   
“Yeah. It’s me.”

 

Dean's hands shake, and he drops his gaze to his lap. His legs are stretched in front of him and are shaking, too, and his fingers are frozen around a gun –  _the_  gun.   
   
"I got the Colt."  
   
"Yeah," Sammy says again. "We can put it up now though."  
   
Sammy's fingers wrap around his own, trying to pry them from the gun. Dean is entranced by how much  _bigger_ they are.    
   
“What the fuck was that?” a kid asks. He's standing next to the car that pulled up, and he’s pale and his jeans are too tight.

 

The sight confuses Dean’s already jumbled brain and he asks, “What am I looking at?”  
   
“You just shot that guy,” the kid Dean is saying, screeching. Dean wishes he would stop. “You shot him, and he exploded into a black cloud of smoke. What the fuck was that?”  
   
“A demon,” Sam answers curtly.  
   
Something beyond the haze of shock snaps Dean’s attention at the d-word. “Did I get it?” Dean asks, frantic. “Did I – is it really – ”  
   
“Yeah, Dean. You got it. For good.”  
   
Dean sighs. He sighs, then collapses forward into Sammy’s strong arms that aren’t trembling like his own. He takes a deep breath, and his brother fills his lungs.  
   
“I did it, Sammy.” He can’t believe it, can’t feel it, but he can feel Sam and a new emptiness in his chest. A hole where the pain used to be. He laughs wild into Sam’s throat. “I did it. I really did it.”  
   
“Yeah, you did. You did so good, and I’m so proud of you.” Dean beams, dazed and exhausted but more exhilarated than he's been in his life. “Now I’m going to get you outta here, okay?”  
   
“Okay. Where’s Meg?”  
   
“Ran,” Sam grunts as he maneuvers Dean to his feet.   
   
Dean sways once he’s standing, but Sam catches him. He clings to his brother as Sam walks them to the Impala. 

   
“Baby,” he breathes.   
   
“You can reunite with your car later,” Sam says. He sounds amused; happy.   
   
Dean thinks he’s happy too.  
   
-  
   
Days later, Dean isn’t happy at all.  
   
His brother has lost his god damn mind. When Dean startled from his shock and told Sam in no short words that killing Yellow Eyes did  _not_ mean he was retiring, Sam had knocked him on his back and wrapped a torn shirt around his wrists.  
   
Now he’s riding in the passenger seat of  _his_ Baby, hands bound in front of him.   
   
Sweat is gathering at the nape of his neck. It was freezing when they left Missouri. It’s been getting steadily warmer as they move West, but Sam still has the heater on. Glancing at his brother, he doesn’t see any flush on Sam’s cheeks. He must be the only one whose warm.  
   
A year ago, Dean could’ve flipped on the air or rolled down the window, sung along with Zepplin in the open air. Now, he can only fidget in his bonds and hope his Alpha gets warm enough to turn the heat down.  
   
At least Sam lets him pick the music.  
   
-  
   
Sam finally realizes he’s turned the Impala into a steam room after they stop for lunch.  
   
“Man, it’s a sauna in here. You mind if I turn the heater off?”  
   
“God no,” Dean says in relief. “Thought I was gonna fuckin’ melt in here.”  
   
Sam’s fingers pause over the dashboard.  
   
Dean nearly whines. “No, c’mon man – ” He stops his complaint when he meets Sam’s eyes, which are tired and sad.  
   
Sam looks away as he slides the dial from red to blue. Dean sighs at the burst of cool air.  
   
“Why didn’t you just tell me you were hot?”   
   
Dean has drifted to the cool breeze of the vents. He tilts his bound wrists towards Sam and doesn’t move his face, lets his eyes flutter in the air. “Thought you might put one of these around my mouth, too.”  
   
Sam swerves into the shoulder of the road, sudden and sharp, and Dean plants cheek first into the dashboard.  
   
“The fuck, Sam – ”  
   
He blinks as Sam, whose slipped from his seat belt like a snake, moves over him, one knee on the console and the other wedging between Dean’s legs. Sam’s hands dig into his shirt and yank him close.  
   
They’re a breath apart. Sam is all around him, inside and outside. An ice thrill that can’t be fear shoots through him. A hot spike that can’t be arousal surges in his blood.  
   
“I’m tired of your shit,” Sam grunts. “You ran from me, and I let you. I  _let_  you. Do you think any other Alpha would’ve done anything but set a missing Omega unit on you?”  
   
Dean stares at him incredulously for a few moments before bursting into laughter. “You  _let_  me? Sammy, I had you two states behind me for months. You had to have a demon – ”  
   
Sam yanks him closer. “I was behind you, but don’t think for a second it was because I couldn’t find you. You’re the one who taught me to track people.” Sam leans until his mouth is moving against Dean’s jaw. It sends a flutter through Dean’s stomach. “You ran, but you didn’t run away from me. You _can’t_.”  
   
 _I can_ , Dean wants to say. _I can do anything_.  
   
Dean tries to shake his head, but stiffens as Sam presses his thigh more insistently between his legs. His cock jumps at the warmth, and his hole twitches at the scent of Sam’s answering arousal.

 

Biting his lip, he tries to find something steady to calm his hormones. Sam poured what was left of his suppressants out before they left Missouri. It’s only been two days, but Dean’s hormones have been regulated by little blue pills for the past 12 years. Two days has been enough to leave Dean off kilter.

 

Which is what Sam wanted, of course. As long and tiresome as Sam’s spiels on the dangers of suppressants was, Dean knows the uglier, darker reasons Sam served him cold turkey instead of tapering his use. Everyone knows the side effects sudden discontinuance of suppressants can cause: hormone imbalance, changes in mood, fatigue, changes in the frequency and intensity of heats, and of course, an obscenely increased sex drive.   
   
“I knew where you were, every step of the way.” Sam continues. “I was so worried. I was so… I was so angry with you. That’d you left me, that you were hurting yourself… But I stayed away. Because I’m not a pig.”  
   
Sam’s hands dip under his shirt. At the brush of fingertips on his belly, Dean finally remembers how to work his hands and grips Sam's wrists, halting his exploration.   
   
“I could’ve claimed you,” Sam says hotly, glaring. “I had every right to. I could claim you now. Way you smell. Christ. How hard you are. Bet you’re dripping for me.”  
   
Dean wants to deny him, but he is hard and dripping, and if Sam wants to fuck him over the Impala’s hood, he won’t be able to do much more than take it. It infuriates him, terrifies him, makes him wetter. Humiliated, Dean squeezes Sam's wrists and his eyes, presses his cheek against the seat.  
   
“I could fuck you now. Could knot you. And you know why, Dean?”  
   
 _Because society is fucked up and no one cares if an Alpha pulls over to fuck his needy little Omega bitch on the side of the road. Because Sam has legal claim to him, can do whatever he wants. Because Dean can’t stop him._  
   
“Because you’re  _mine_. But not just on paper.” Sam kisses his jaw then, mouth so soft Dean's eyes startle open. “You know why else? Why else I could lay you out over the car and knot you, just keep you full for hours?” Sam asks, low and dark in his ear. "Because you want it.”  
   
“Fuck off,” Dean snarls, angry and confused and so turned on his brain hurts. He pushes Sam's hands from under his shirt. “You’re not that hot.”  
   
One of Sam's free hands flies to his jaw, gripping his chin hard, before Sam captures his mouth.   
   
And that’s the only word Dean can think to describe the way Sam kisses him. The way Sam’s lips come down on his with bone rattling force, the way Sam’s teeth sink into his bottom lip, the way Sam’s fingers slide to his jaw and open him wide for Sam’s tongue.   
   
Dean remains a captive as Sam fucks that burning tongue along his own, tastes the grooves of his teeth and the slick of his cheek before sliding over Dean’s swollen lips. Sam holds his mouth wide as he bites and licks at Dean’s lips.  
   
It’s so hot, the slippery slides, the heat emanating from Sam’s body, the scent of him. Dean wants to cry the next time Sam sweeps that teasing tongue between his lips.   
   
If he wanted this, he would surge forward, suck Sam’s tongue into his mouth and taste his brother for himself. But despite what Sam thinks, he doesn’t want this _(his stiff, aching cock and his leaking asshole and his burning need don’t mean he wants this)_.  
   
“Stop. Sam, stop.”  
   
Sam stills. A frustrated noise leaves him as he slides from Dean's lap and clambers out of the Impala.  
   
Dean watches as his brother pace the length of the car. He’s magnificent in his fury, really, beautiful in the fierceness of his Alpha stride.  
   
Dean fixes his gaze on the dashboard.  
   
Eventually, Sam slides back into the driver’s seat.  
   
“You don’t think you want to be mated. You’re still trying to be something you’re not. I understand. I get it. And it’s okay.”  
   
He turns to Dean, those damn eyes shining, and nods before laying a palm on Dean’s knee. Dean flinches reflexively at the touch. It’s too much – his body is still buzzing, he’s still hard, still so wet.  
   
Sam's face pinches at the rejection, but he doesn’t move his hand. “You’re gonna fight me. I get that, too. But I’m gonna help you find yourself, I promise. We’re gonna get you healthy and happy, and whatever you do…however you hurt me until we get there, it’s okay.”  
   
Dean frowns. He doesn’t want to be the Omega Sam wants to make him, but he doesn’t want to hurt Sam either. He’s never wanted that.   
   
“But I’m not gonna let you lie about this.” Dean startles at the sudden harshness in Sam’s voice. “I’m not gonna let you pretend you don’t want me.”  
   
Sam squeezes his knee again, then starts the car.  
   
-  
   
Sam keeps him bound.  
   
When he sleeps, Sam ties his hands to the headboard. If there's not a headboard, Sam drills a god damn bar in the wall and tells management 'not to worry about it' when they ask what the fuck.  
   
When they drive, Sam belts him like a kid and makes him keep his bound hands on the dashboard.   
   
When they stop to eat, Sam feeds him.  
   
Some people raise their eyebrows, but no one's confused about what they're seeing. A naughty Omega who can't be trusted and his Alpha keeper. Maybe his Alpha owner, maybe an Alpha whose been sent to round him up and drag him back to wherever he ran from.  
   
He calls Sam out on the crazy that night when his brother is threading his wrists to a creaking headboard.   
   
“You gotta get this is insane. This is kidnapping, man, you – “  
   
“It’s not kidnapping. You belong to me.”  
   
Sam ties off the knot. It’s not too tight, but Dean has no illusions he’s going to slip out.

 

“You can’t force a mating,” Dean dares to say, voice quiet but firm. “Sammy.  _Sam_ – “  
   
“What else am I supposed to do?” Sam interrupts. He slides next to Dean on the bed, brows furrowed, gaze soft. “You’re so god damn  _stubborn_. You’re still trying to please Dad – “  
   
“ _Don’t_ bring up Dad.”  
   
Sam’s jaw cracks. “You’re still trying to be  _his_ Omega. But you’re  _mine_ now.”  
   
Dean twists his hands in his binding, pushes his heels into the mattress. He doesn’t belong to anyone.   
   
When he falls still, Sam sighs. “I don’t want to do this,” he says, sounding as desperate and devastated as Dean feels.   
   
“Then  _stop_. You gotta know this is crazy.”  
   
Sam shakes his head.   
   
“I want this to stop as much as you do.” Eyes earnest and wet, he cups Dean’s cheek. “As soon as you can accept what we both want, it can.”  
   
-  
   
The only time Dean’s free is when he uses the bathroom. In public, Sam stands outside of his stall. In private, Sam stands outside the bathroom door.  
   
Dean learns to savor the moments alone in motel bathrooms.   
   
Mind clearer without Sam's scent and words and craziness, Dean tries to think of how to escape. Every plan beats with the echo of Sam's words:  _you didn't run away from me you can't you can't you can't_.  
   
He thinks of calling Bobby more than once. But even if he could get in touch with him, there's nothing Bobby could do.  
   
He couldn't outrun or overpower Sam. His previous spiels about Omega rights have obviously passed over Sam's head, and his brother is even less likely to listen now. If he could make it to Bobby's place, Bobby could be arrested for kidnapping and find himself behind bars for at least five years.  
    
He can't hide, run, or convince Sam this is nuts and incredibly fucked up. There's no reasoning with Sam. There's no one to help him escape and there's no one to shake Sam sane again.  
   
Once Dean's been settled into Sam's house in California, he's not leaving it.  
   
-  
   
On the fourth day of their adventure, Dean hasn't given up on finding a way out, but everywhere he looks is a darkened path.  
   
"We need to do laundry," Sam says with a pinched face. He drops the shirt he was just sniffing and reaches into Dean's duffle for another. He holds the shirt a few inches from his nose before dropping it too. "We need to do laundry today."  
   
"Well, I'm kinda tied up. So you'll just have to wait."  
   
Sam eyes him with a level stare - his response to Dean's quips and jabs - then picks up another shirt. "You're not gonna do all the laundry, y'know. I'll help out."  
   
Dean snorts.  
   
"You're not gonna be my slave. Being mated means we're partners."  
   
"Partners," Dean repeats with a sardonic smile. "Sure, Sammy. Just like when we were kids and we shared all the chores equally."  
   
"No, Dean. You never treated me like a partner. You treated me like a pain in the ass kid."  
   
"Well, you were – ”  
   
“Maybe if you hadn’t treated me like it – had treated me like an equal, trusted me enough to let me handle myself – ”

 

“I was trying to protect you – ”

 

“I didn’t need  _protecting_ ,” Sam huffs, wringing a shirt in his hands before dropping it and reaching back into the duffle. “I needed _you_ , Dean. I needed you to trust me. I just - I wanted everything you tried to hide. You thought you were doing it to protect me, but it kept us apart. It - "  
   
Dean wants to explain he never meant to push Sam away, but Sam halts mid-sentence. His eyes grow wide and glittering as he fishes the collar from Dean’s duffle.   
   
Dean stops breathing.  
   
Sam’s eyes are wet when their gazes meet. “You kept it?”  
   
“I – ” He can’t explain the collar: couldn’t explain it to himself when he didn’t toss the damn thing out, and can’t explain it to Sam now. “It helped on cases.”  
   
“Cases,” Sam repeats, lips quirking smugly. “Okay. Right.”  
   
“It did.”  
   
“And I’m sure that’s the only reason.” Sam laughs. He’s still laughing as he asks, “Put it on for me?”  
   
Dean gapes at him. Sam stares back, face open, and Dean realizes he's not joking. “You’ve lost your fuckin' marbles if you think I'm putting that thing on.”  
   
Sam rolls his eyes, like Dean's teasing instead of shaking in his boots. “You kept it all this time for a reason.”  
   
“You think I didn’t throw it out because I had some…what? Deep seeded, subconscious, complex neurosis – ”  
   
“I think some part of you liked belonging to me.” Sam steps forward, collar hanging off two fingers. “As much as you say you don’t, you want to be mated. You want to be mine. You can deny who you are all you want to me, but not to yourself.”  
   
Sam looks so pleased with himself, Dean feels sick.  
   
“It itched,” Dean says. “Gave me hives.” Sam rolls his eyes again. Anger flushes Dean’s system, makes him hungry to hurt and shake. Lip curled, he adds, “It’s what made me run. I was so fucking pissed at you, Sammy. Couldn’t believe you’d do that to me. Decided I couldn’t let you. Guess now I don’t really have a choice.”  
   
Sam stops a few steps away, collar clenched in white knuckles, nostrils flared. He’s angry, sorrowfully so. Dean’s gaze drops to the collar.  
   
“I told you I wasn’t going to let you lie to yourself about what you want."  
   
“I’m won’t wear that thing.” Slowly, testing Sam’s temper and patience, he adds, “If I have a choice.”  
   
Sam’s lips thin, stretched white and bloodless, and he closes the distance between them. “I can keep you tied up, or you can wear this.”  
   
“Okay,” Dean says, speaking slowly to cover his rising panic. “That’s gonna happen…never.”  
   
“I’m serious, Dean. You need something to show you’re mine when we’re out – ”  
   
“So everyone knows I’m an owned little bitch – ”  
   
“So you’re _safe_.”  
   
Face raw, Sam crouches in front of him. Sam’s body is still a massive, beautiful thing, even folded in half and kneeling. He settles warm palms on Dean’s knees. Dean jerks at the touch, but Sam curls his fingers into the meat of his thigh, stilling him.  
   
“I want you to be safe, happy. Don’t you get that?”  
   
Dean sighs. “I get it,” he says softly. Sam’s fingers gentle. “I get that, as insane as your asshole cavemen routine is, you think you’re doin’ right by me. But Sammy - "  
   
“I didn’t mean for you to freak out.” Sam’s voice is even – the Alpha calm before the Alpha storm, and Dean tenses under Sam's hands. “If you’d just talked to me, you could’ve told me you didn’t want it, and I wouldn’t have made you wear it.”  
   
“Like you’re not making me wear it now?”  
    
Sam clenches his jaw before straightening. He doesn’t look at Dean as he stands.  
   
“Tied up or collared,” Sam tells him flatly. “There’s gonna be some restrictions if you choose tied up.” When Dean gapes, Sam’s face hardens. “I don’t want to do that, Dean. But we both know what you really want. I’m just trying to help you accept it.”  
   
-  
   
The collar is itchier than Dean remembered. It’s heavier, too, thicker around his throat, as if Sam’s claim has been re-imbued into the leather. Now it holds Dean tighter, hotter, with little teeth biting into his flesh and little hands holding him still.  
   
"I've gotta piss."  
   
Sam pauses his conversation with a Beta on his right to smile. There's a slight pink on Sam's cheeks and his mouth is tugging upwards. He's not drunk, but he's getting there.  
   
Dean licks his lips. Maybe if he can keep playing the good, docile Omega, push drinks at Sam with a smile and his collar stark against his skin, he can...  
   
"Danny doesn't think we can take him at pool.”  
    
Dean's next words die as Sam slides on his barstool, pressing even closer to Dean than he has been all night - which has been pretty damn close. His hands curl around Dean's neck, thumbs brushing the collar.  
   
"We're gonna crush 'em." Sam rests their foreheads together, eyes closed as he inhales Dean's alcohol soft scent. "It'll be just like old times."  
   
Sam's breath fans across Dean's lips. Dean slides off the bar stool with a start.  
   
"Okay," he agrees quickly. Sam blinks, thrown off kilter by Dean's abrupt movement, but smiles at Dean's acquiescence. "I just - I really gotta piss."  
   
"Men's room s'over there." The bartender nods down the hall.  
   
Dean lingers for a moment, waiting for Sam to plop from his seat and escort him to the restroom. But Sam just swings toward a guy clad head to toe in brown, chatting happily about how he and his Omega are going to kick their Beta butts from here to Sunday.  
   
-  
   
Dean walks to an open stall and rests the front of his body against it. It's disgusting - public restrooms are disgusting - but the coolness of the stall seeps into his skin.  
   
Feeling calmer, he turns his focus to planning a way out of this mess.   
   
His best bet is to subtly press as many beers as he can to Sam's mammoth hands and hope the alcohol leaves Sam sloppy enough for Dean to slip away.   
   
It’s a vague plan. Sam could not drink much, could end up on the kind of bender that keeps him awake instead of puts him out cold, could still tie him too tightly to wriggle away. He can't see any other options forming, though, unless he opts to depend on more than beer to make Sam fuzzy. Maybe he could slip  Sam some painkillers when they back to the motel; maybe he could take Sam down, tie  _him_  to the headboard for a change...  
   
Something sick unfurls in his stomach at idea of drugging Sam, leaving him tied and helpless.   
   
The door creaks, and Dean tenses at the sound of a slurred Alpha laugh.  
   
If this were any other day, Dean would just brush past an Alpha. But today Dean has an Omega collar on, and the suppressants that softened his scent and steadied his stupid Omega hormones are flooding out of his system, and the bravado that once fueled him is running low.  
   
"Oh," the Alpha, shorter and slimmer than Dean, eyes and mouth cruel, says again. "Hey there."  
   
One of the Beta's flanking him rolls his eyes. "Collared, Mac. C'mon."  
    
The Alpha doesn’t seem dissuaded. He leers at Dean, but before he can take a step, the door swings open and Sam swoops in.  
   
"Hey, Dean," he says, smile drunk and dangerous even as it reaches his eyes. "Was startin' to worry you fell in."  
   
"Well, I didn't." Dean answers too quickly. It's only after he's spoken that he realizes how nervous he sounds, must smell. It's only after he's moving towards Sam that he realizes how nervous he is. "You were linin' us up a game, right? I'm ready to kick some ass."  
   
Sam slides an arm around his shoulders and the anxiety singing in his bones quiets to a hum.  
   
-  
   
Once Sam has ushered him out of the bathroom, he pushes his brother into the hall, away from the bar, and pins him to the wall.  
   
"Dean," Sam breathes, eyes shocked but pleased as he licks his lips. One hand drops to Dean's hip and the other slides to his neck, thumb on his collar. Sam's cheeks are red and his eyes are bright like a summer morning as he pulls Dean closer. "Thank God, finally, thought I was gonna lose my damn mind - "  
   
Sam is trying to talk and capture Dean's mouth at the same time. It gives Dean the opportunity to curl his hands around Sam's wrist and push them to the wall. Sam moans, laughs a little, and keeps angling for Dean's mouth.  
   
"So hot, knew you'd be like this, all over me, knew you'd be - "  
   
"Shut up," Dean growls. It's a chirp to Sam's Alpha scream, but it does stop Sam from trying to kiss him. Dean huffs as he releases Sam's wrists. "Just - shut up."  
   
"Dean?"  
   
"I said shut up! Jesus Christ, Sammy, can't you listen?”  
   
"Dean - "  
   
The tenuous thing holding Dean together snaps. He seizes Sam by his shirt. There is so much rage rushing through his body, he thinks he could actually lift Sam off the ground, throw him down the hallway and just run. Take the Impala and just drive to Mexico, or Canada, or to the bottom of the fucking ocean, Dean doesn't care.  
   
"You did this to me," he growls, shaking Sam roughly. "I could've had that guy on his back in a second. I could've - I never even woulda looked twice at those dicks because I could’ve broken their noses without looking and you  _took_ that.”  
   
Sam is shaking his head, opening his mouth like Dean's going to let him speak. Dean pulls then pushes him. The sound of Sam’s back slamming into the wall is satisfying and sickening.

  
" _No_ , Sam. You wanted me to be an Omega bitch. Well congratu-fucking-lations, I'm on my way."  
   
A sudden burst of exhaustion sinks him. His hands fall from Sam's shirt and he stumbles backwards a bit, feeling dizzy and off-kilter. There is an emptiness rushing to overcome his anger.  
   
"I was – freaked out," he says, only now comprehending the tense cold that spread at the Alpha's leer. "I wouldn't have thought anything of being around an Alpha, but now my fuckin’ – I’m fuckin’ losin’ it.”  
    
Softly, Sam sighs, "It's okay. Your body is just trying to get back in balance. Anxiety, exhaustion, mood all over the place – that’s all part of going off your suppressants, and it’s okay to – ”  
   
"It's not," Dean snaps without teeth. He's so tired. His fingers come up to the clasp of the collar as he says, "Fuck this, it's not okay, and I'm not wearing this stupid thing for another damn second."  
   
Sam has him turned and slammed against the wall before his fingers even brush the D-ring.  
   
"No," Sam growls, and it reverberates through the entire hallway. "You don't get to take this off. Not ever. It's mine to put on you, okay, mine to take off.”   
   
Sam grips his upper arms, hard, and Dean turns his head. It's so reminiscent of the day in the cemetery, Sam pinning Dean to a tree, waxing about how perfect their lives could be, teasing Dean's heat with his lips and his scent and his thick finger.  
   
It's not the right thought to swim to the surface. The too warm flush emanating from his collar flickers, and Dean can feel a thrill trill through his spine. He squeezes his eyes shut. He knows that zing, that tell-tale beat of the frenzy before it tries to overwhelm him.  
   
He can't run if he's starting to go into heat. He won't make it two steps from the hotel before he's got a swarm of Alphas sniffing at an unclaimed, in estrus Omega.  
   
"Just let me take it off.”  
   
"No."  
   
"Fuckin' - god _dam_ it, Sammy. Why  _not_?"   
   
He's shaking now, fever trembling below his skin. His heats generally take a day or two to fully unfold, leaving him horny and restless until he's swept by need. No suppressants paired with the proximity to a hungry Alpha has him sliding under the pull so quickly he’s dizzy.   
   
Loathing himself for it, Dean angles for Sam's Alpha ego. "Everyone knows I'm yours, Sammy." Sam makes a little sound at that, presses himself closer, and Dean can feel the heat between his thighs. He lowers his voice, tries to sound sweet and soft. "Everyone's seen us. They know who  I belong to."  
   
"You don't."  
   
Dean doesn't know how to respond.  
   
"I thought it would help," Sam continues, expression wearing from anger to something softer and forlorn. "If you wore it. I thought it would remind you that it's you and me now. Make you feel safe. Taken care of. Wanted."  
   
Dean shivers. He can admit that to himself: he wants to be wanted. Needed. Loved. But not because he's an Omega, not because Sammy's an Alpha. He just… _wants_.  
   
But not this.  
   
"Fuck," Sam breathes. His thumbs brush between the collar and the soft skin of Dean's throat. "Want you so bad. Knew you'd be so fuckin' pretty with my collar but...  _Jesus_ , Dean. Way you look. Make me so crazy. Way you look, smell, way you - way you kept it. You left me but you  _kept it_  - "  
   
Sam keeps pressing his hard-on against Dean as he talks, keeps touching and smelling, keeps spreading molasses through Dean with every panted word.  
   
"Sammy, it's not - it doesn't mean anything. Stop, man - "  
   
Dean's protest stutters as Sam drags his teeth over Dean's throat. It's wet and hot and Dean almost wants to bare this throat.   
   
"Stop."  
   
"You stop," Sam mouths against his jaw.  
   
"Goddamn, Sam, stop - "  
   
" _You_ stop," Sam says again, a wrathful exhaustion taking his features and voice. "Just stop. Stop fighting me. Please." He looks so young as he sighs and cups Dean's face. " _Please_ , Dean, don't fight me anymore. I'm fucking tired of this. I  _hate_ it. I just want my brother back."  
   
"Me too," Dean says sincerely. His own hands come to hold Sam's wrists in a loose-fingered hold. "We can go back, Sammy. It's not too late. We can be brothers again. It'll be just like before."  
   
Sam stares at him and for a few beats, and Dean thinks maybe this is it. Maybe he's finally broken through the pig to his baby brother.   
   
But Sam brings his hands around Dean's neck, settling over the leather.  
   
"I don't want it to be the way it was before," Sam says. "I want it to be better."   
    
-  
   
Back at the motel, Sam presses himself flush against Dean's back, their eyes locked in the bathroom mirror. His thumbs rest on the knob of Dean's spine and his fingers rest over the collar. Water rolls over Dean's jaw, because he didn't have a chance to dry his face before Sam moved into the bathroom and slid wide hands around his neck.  
   
"I'll take it off when you sleep," Sam says to their reflections. "But that's the only time. And I'm the only one who takes it off.” He leans in, mouthing over the soft shell of Dean's ear. "I'm the only one who touches it. Just like I'm the only one who touches you."  
   
Dean can feel Sam hot and hard against his lower back, knows Sam can see the line of his own cock in his jeans. But Sam doesn't press him into the counter or rub against him; he just undoes the collar and slips out of the bathroom.  
   
-  
   
An hour later, Dean is in bed, clenching his fists so he won't touch himself as he listens to Sam jerk off in the bathroom.  
   
Sam keeps groaning his name, Alpha voice a grumble that bites and caresses Dean everywhere he loves to be touched. The smell of his leaking pre-come is so heady Dean can taste it on the back of his tongue.  
   
Dean's heat is responding to Sam. He can feel slick gathering in the seat of his sweats. It makes him squirm, rub his stiff dick into the mattress, bite into his cheek.  
   
Sam growls his name, a deep, desperate _Dean_ , and comes.   
   
He doesn't shower. Dean thinks about asking him to, because the smell of his release makes the slick drip thick from his asshole, coat his thighs. But Dean stays quiet and still as Sam settles in his own bed. When Sam's breathing evens, Dean slips into the bathroom himself.  
   
-  
   
It barely takes Dean’s hand closing around his cock to have him coming out of his skin. He hasn’t touched himself since Sam stole his life, and his fingers feel even better than he remembered as he runs them along his cock.  
   
He wants to finger himself  _(two fingers would be great but three would be better, might even feel like Sam's)_  but the bathroom is cramped and he doesn't want to take the time to find a good position to slip his fingers up his ass; he just wants to come.   
   
He turns the faucet on, knowing it won’t stop Sam from hearing or smelling him. Sam will know exactly what he’s doing and why.  
   
Licking his lips, he decides he doesn't care. Let Sam hear him and smell him. Let Sam know Dean's only feet from him, touching himself the way Sam wants to touch him. Let Sam want. Dean’s never going to give.  
   
In fact, he hopes Sam  _does_ know. He hopes it makes Sam  _ache_.  
   
Anger and lust are spilling from his surface as he finally starts stroking his dick. He moans, head falling back, because it feels so impossibly good. His fingers flutter as he reaches behind himself, getting his palm and fingers wet with slick before gripping his cock again.  
   
His other hand grips the sink as he fucks faster and harder into his fist. His thoughts are a racing haze but somewhere in the burn of his cock sliding through his hand, he thinks of moaning Sam’s name. Teasing him with the sound of Dean’s breathy groans, the sound of his name on Dean’s panting tongue. It’s the only time he’ll ever hear it.  
   
Dean strips himself harder. He can taste the release, that split-second of Heaven, and his hips stutter. He’s going to say Sam’s name but he’s so close, so close, he doesn’t want to risk his knotbrained brother throwing open the bathroom door and deciding Dean’s moans are an invitation.  
    
Sudden panic mixes with every other emotion and thought overwhelming him. He jerks his dick so hard it hurts.  
   
Sam  _is_ going to take this as an invitation. He’s going to assume this is Dean’s way of not fighting anymore. Sam is going to swoop through the door and when Dean tells him no he’s not going to listen, because Dean was being a naughty little Omega tease.  
   
Dean looks to see if he locked the door, but instead sees Sam.  
   
His brother is lounging in the frame, one hand under his navel and the other gripping the molding. He’s still naked –  _Christ_ – and his fat Alpha cock –  _so pink and pretty and bigbigbig_  – is plump, shiny with his previous release, still rising from his dark mass of pubic hair.  
   
“Sam,” he gasps, shocked, terrified that Sam will step forward, push his hips over the counter and just shove his still hard Alpha dick inside. It would be so easy - Dean's  _so wet_  - and he'd fight tooth and nail but once that knot expanded, it'd feel so good. Sam would make him feel  _so good_. " _Sam_ ," he cries out, unable to stop himself from moaning or coming over the counter.   
   
Dean slumps over countertop, letting it hold him as he shakes apart.   
   
Sam pads forward and he knows Sam is going to fuck him. Sam is going to fuck him and really, it's Dean's fault. Dean wanted to shove Sam's face in what he couldn't have, but Dean forgot that Sam could  _take_ : Sam owns him.   
   
"Clean it up.”   
   
Dean startles at the words. Briefly he thinks Sam is ordering him to lick his own come from the counter. It makes him rail ( _makes his knees even weaker oh fuck_ ), but when he turns to snarl at Sam, his brother is holding a washcloth.   
   
He glances from the cloth to Sam's face. His brother's eyes are heated, amused, but there is a barely contained darkness dancing too. There is a  _hunger_ that could bend Dean's bones.  
   
"Get some sleep," Sam says as Dean numbly takes the towel. "We're leaving early. And next time," he husks, sliding the hand still scented with his come up to Dean's chin. He tilts Dean's head, catching his gaze as Dean tries not to drown in the spice and warmth. "If you need a hand, just ask."  
   
Sam kisses him gently on the jaw, then pads out of the bathroom. 


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ WARNINGS. THIS CONTAINS DRUGGED NON-CON WINCEST AND RAPE RECOVERY.

Dean is fucked.  
  
It took the light of day, coffee, and a pretty waitress blushing once she sniffed his heat, but he realizes now that he is fucked.  
  
Sam planned last night. He saw Dean spinning in the whirlwind of emotions and hormones the loss of his suppressants caused, saw Dean trembling on the precipice of his first unbalanced heat, saw Dean gasping for air; he saw an opportunity.  
  
Dean is pretending to the read paper as he wonders if everything went according to Sammy’s plan; if maybe Sam had hoped for more – for Dean to beg, to finally break and jump on his knot. The scent and sound of Alpha are still stark in Dean’s brain, and the terror tinged pleasure of Dean’s orgasm is still biting under the surface.  
  
For all the fantasies tumbling in Dean’s head now, though, Sam’s seduction attempt has only made him more determined not to become the good Omega to his brother’s Alpha. Because if Sam is trying to get to Dean’s spirit through his body, through cheap manipulations of his  
biology, then Sam is desperate. Sam is always sharper when he's desperate; more dangerous.  
  
Dean could really lose this game. He's already starting to lose pieces of himself. If Sam gets him to California, traps him in an Omega life, he could drown. Not just forget how to be a fighter, but forget that he wants to be.  
  
Sam could bury him under sex and soft promises, a nice house and a two-car garage, rugrats and bar-b-ques, and he could forget he ever felt the sun.  
  
When Sam comes back from the bathroom, Dean's heart is in his throat.  
  
"I think I found us something."  
  
Sam seems taken a back, but he smiles, wide and bright. "Okay, Dean. What'd you find us?" His tone is indulgent.  
  
Dean pauses. The waitress slides to their booth, placing their plates on the table. He can smell the butter on the pancakes, the crackling fat of the bacon, the sweetness of the syrup. He glances to see Sam watching him instead of his own plate. Sam's still grinning.  
  
For a moment, Dean wonders: is this what their life as mates would be - a giant plate of breakfast and a stupid grinning Sam sitting across from him, watching him with those shiny eyes, as if he’s the sunrise or set or the entire earth spinning?  
  
"A job," Dean says quickly. "There've been a lot of dog attacks. Every victim says it's gotta be something else though - a bear, or a wolf. The victims that survived anyway."  
  
"Dean."  
  
"It's totally a werewolf," Dean lies, hoping he still knows Sam well enough to play those tender heart strings. Sam might be able to say no to an abstract hunt, but something real and close, something with innocent blood, will surely tug at his sympathy. It won’t take long for Sam to realize it’s a made up hunt, especially if he asks to see the article Dean just fabricated, but maybe it’ll be enough. It’ll have to be. "And it's on our way."  
  
Sam eyes him for a moment before leaning in the booth. "You want to go on a hunt?" Dean nods. Sam sighs as he picks up his fork. "We don't do that anymore."  
  
"You don't. Haven't in a while. That doesn't mean you can't let me gank one werewolf."  
  
"We don't hunt," Sam repeats.  
  
”People are dying, Sam. People have died already and it looks like they'll just keep dying if I don't - "  
  
"You're not the only hunter," Sam interrupts. He's watching Dean with a quiet air of exhaustion. The skin under his eyes is dark, darker than Dean realized, and his skin is paler too. The bones of his face are sharper (Sam is always sharper when he's desperate). Dean drops his gaze to his plate. Suddenly he can hear Sam last night, desperate and drunk and begging, please stop fighting me, I hate this, want my brother back, want you. "Dean. Look at me."  
  
When Dean does, Sam repeats, "You're not the only hunter. You're great at it, and you've helped so many people. But now it's time for you, okay? Let someone else take this."  
  
"But - " Dean starts, blinking. He pulled the piled bodies card, holding innocent lives above Sam's head, and Sam's just...sitting there, eating breakfast. "People are dying."  
  
Sam's expression, tone, is gentle as he tells Dean, "It's not your job to save them."  
  
"Yes it is," Dean insists urgently. "It is. That's what Dad taught me to do. Hunt things and save people. It's what I'm supposed to be doing. What you’re supposed to be doing, too."  
  
Sam just shakes his head sadly and sips his water. Dean's made up hunt isn't even making a dent in Sam's day.  
  
Desperate, Dean slams his fist on the table. "The little brother I used to know would give a damn about this. Innocent people getting mauled to death. Hell, the little brother I knew would give a damn about the wolf too. You used to care so much, Sammy." He takes a breath, realizing there are tears in his eyes. He blinks past them. "I know you didn't like hunting, but you never just...didn't care. Not when it came to people being hurt."  
  
"I care," Sam says softly. His eyes aren't wet and burning like Dean's, but they are wide and earnest. Slowly, he reaches across the table, sliding his hand on top of Dean's. "I care about people. And werewolves. I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I can't stop pain. No one can."  
  
Dean tries to pull his hand away, but Sam stops him, gripping with sure fingers.  
  
"My first year at school, a girl in my psych class said there was a ghost in her dorm room."  
  
The words stutter heavy in Dean's heart, and he stills his attempts as he waits for Sam to speak again.  
  
"She was right. We found out who she was, found her bones on school grounds." Sam smiles, tight and dark. "I remember thinking I was never getting away from hunting. When we finally salted and burned the remains, though, Alice... She thought she saw evil everywhere. Threw  
herself off the clock tower about a month later."  
  
Sam grips his hand harder, hard enough to make Dean wince, and watches him with steady eyes. "You could never see what it did to you, when we lost someone on a hunt, but it tore you apart. You and Dad always thought I was the one who couldn't handle hunting, but I understood that sometimes being the good guy isn't enough.”  
  
"Sammy, please." The tears in his eyes are swelling, ready to fall along with him. "It's the only thing I know. It's who I am."  
  
"It's who Dad made you."  
  
"What if," Dean continues, trying to speak through a dark, looming ache. "What if I just did hunts in California? I could get a partner. You just have to work with me on this."  
  
"Jesus, Dean. It’s like you’re an addict. I'm cutting you off."  
  
"You're killing them," Dean grits. "Just so you know. You're killing people."  
  
"Don't be so dramatic - "  
  
"You won't let me save them! So everyone who dies, who I could've helped and didn't, you killed them."  
  
Sam's grip on his hand is bone breaking. Dean tries not to flinch, not to look away, but Sam's thumb digs into a pressure point and he grimaces. Sam releases his hand.  
  
Eventually, Sam takes another sip of his water. "I won't be killing you," he says evenly.  
  
Dean feels like he's breaking inside. He has nothing else to say or throw or accuse or spit. He has nothing.  
  
"That enough for you?" Dean presses.  
  
Sam doesn't hesitate. "Absolutely."  
  
-  
Only seven hours, Dean reminds himself as he squirms in his seat, slick coating his skin, seeping through his jeans onto the Impala's seat.  
  
"We'll be there in eight hours," Sam tells him. Dean can hear the breaths that aren't in Sam's words, the heat. "Nine, tops."  
  
Dean grits his teeth and presses the back of his head into the seat. He wants to cry.  
  
"You'll love the house," Sam continues, as if Dean isn't falling apart beside him.  
  
"Sammy," he pants. Sam glances from the road to meet his gaze. His little brother is almost as flush as he is, pink kissing his cheeks to his ears. Sam licks his lips, and Dean clenches his eyes shut. "Shut. Up."  
  
"Just trying to help."  
  
Dean spares a moment of writhing to glare at him.  
  
Sam sighs and focuses on the road. Dean sighs too, slow and deep, and focuses on anything that isn't Sam.  
  
Once they realized how fast Dean's heat was spiking, Sam pulled to the shoulder and asked what Dean wanted. A knot, Dean had wanted to snarl. Sense memories of the night before had left him half-tempted to, but he remembered that had been Sam’s goal, that giving in now was a life sentence, so he'd bitten his lip until the stinging pain distracted him from the fire in his belly.  
  
He could've said he wanted to go to a motel, lock himself in a dirty room until his heat cooled, but he knew Sammy's game, now, knew Sammy was playing quick and dirty and for keeps.  
  
He knew they weren't far from Palo Alto, and his hazed, dazed brain had told him that was where he needed to be. So he'd told Sam to drive as fast as Baby could go.  
  
Now he's regretting his decision. He's torn between screaming at his idiot mouth and Sam's idiot brain. Sam should've never listened to him. He's an Omega in estrus: nothing he says should be taken seriously.  
  
Dean laughs.  
  
"Are you okay? Dean?"  
  
"Peachy," Dean says, still laughing. "S'just funny, y'know."  
  
"What is?"  
  
"That you were right. Omegas don't know what they want."  
  
Sam glances at him. He doesn't seem pleased by Dean's admission. His brows are furrowed, and there's a frown on his lips, and when he looks away his shoulders slump.  
  
"Do you want me to pull over? I think there's a motel at the next exit. We could - "  
  
"Just drive.”  
  
Sam presses the gas to the floor.  
  
-  
  
Two hours later, Dean is sitting on his hands to keep them away from his cock and his eyes are clenched to keep himself from glancing at the fat bulge in Sam's jeans.  
  
"This is why suppressing your heats is so dangerous," Sam is lecturing. "You have mild heats while you're on them, even if you only give yourself one a year, but your hormones go haywire when you try to get your body back on its natural cycle."  
  
"Ugh. Dun say cycle."  
  
Sam laughs fondly. It curls warm and soft in Dean's chest. It pisses him off.  
  
"You could give yourself a little relief."  
  
Dean grits his teeth. "Bet you'd like that."  
  
"Just trying to help."  
  
Briefly, Dean thinks of opening his door and rolling onto the asphalt. The rough road would scrape his knees and elbows, bruise and redden his cheeks, jostle his bones. It would hurt, and the pain would center him. Not for long - minutes would pass and the heat would rise to overtake him again - but it would be a moment of relief, of clarity.  
  
It would scare the shit out of Sam, then piss him the fuck off, which at this point is more than enough reason to do anything.  
  
"Look, I'm not gonna bad touch you or anything, but your squirming is really distracting. I'm gonna wreck us if you can't get yourself under control."  
  
"Fuck you," Dean spits, pinching his own thighs. "You think I don't know what you're doin'? Actin' like I'm the one who control myself. You're the one who can't control yourself. Fuckin' - fuckin' kidnappin' me 'cause you can't take no for an answer."  
  
"Calm down, Dean. I didn't mean to upset - "  
  
"You fuckin' calm down! You feel like there's a fire in you and calm down!"  
  
With a burst of anger, Dean slides one hand from under his leg and slams it against the window.  
  
"Dean!" Sam growls, only enraging Dean further. Dean embraces the anger, buries his incapacitating lust underneath it, and punches the dashboard. "Dean."  
  
Sam yanks onto the shoulder, but Dean is barely aware of the Impala coming to a halt.  
  
"You can't control your Alpha," Dean pants, breathless and flushed, too warm. He growls in frustration as another wave of heat licks at him, squirms in his desperation and frustration. "You forced a mating, man. Doesn't get any more outta control than that."  
  
Dean wriggles, his sopping skin rubbing into the uncomfortable sopping denim of his jeans. It's no relief. Tears bite at him. Need bites at him harder.  
  
"Got news for you, Sammy.” His body is vibrating, but he manages to tilt his trembling chin in a move of unthinkable Omega defiance. "You ain't gonna control me."  
  
Sam storms from the car in a flurry of long, impeccably carved muscle and Alpha growls.  
  
Good, Dean thinks, reveling in the satisfaction of whipping the same rage burning his belly in his brother. It's not the relief he was seeking - he's still drowning, still needy, still nearly out of his  
mind with want - but the rush of power, of hurting, makes his toes curl in his boots.  
  
A sick feeling creep crawls along the satisfaction.  
  
-  
  
Sam rounds the car as Dean simmers in his heat. Watching his brother walk makes him dizzy, so Dean closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his mouth.  
  
He wonders if Sam is ever going to get back in the car; if he's ever going to make it to a place with a bathroom that locks so he can finally get himself off. He's wondering when Sam wrenches his door open.  
  
The fresh air hits Dean's face. He instantly feels more grounded to his skin, less like a buzzing atom of need trying to escape flesh and zing through the atmosphere.  
  
"Get out of the car," Sam says, ducking into the seat with his hands hovering above Dean's shoulders.  
  
"Don't touch me."  
  
"I won't, if you get out of the car."  
  
"How 'bout you get in the car, and I get out. Or, I stay in the car - "  
  
"God dammit, Dean." Sam hands curl around the car as he leans towards Dean. "That wasn't a request. Get out of the fucking car."  
  
Swallowing, shaking, Dean begins to move.  
  
He doesn't know what Sam is doing, and it has his heart beating rabbit fast as he steps out of the Impala and into the evening twilight.  
  
Dean leans against the Impala. His legs are trembling, along with the rest of his body, and it's difficult to stand.  He presses his palms flat against the car, then slides them under the small of his back, keeping himself pinned, still.  
  
It's an uncomfortable position, but it isn't as uncomfortable as the slick that had gathered in the seat of his jeans dripping down his legs.  
  
He watches as Sam stands still and tall, sturdy as the forest flourishing behind him. In the fading jewel light, against the trees jutting strong and imposing from the earth, he appears as a force Dean could never hope to fight.  
  
"Jerk off."  
  
Dean's eyes fly wide. "What?"  
  
Sam crosses his arms over his chest. His gaze, jaw, shoulders, knees, are locked in stone as he stares at Dean. He's shaking, though, with the force of standing shock still - with the force of not striding forward and taking his heat soaked Omega.  
  
"It'll take the edge off."  
  
"You're serious?" Sam's only response is to continue watching Dean with a steady gaze. "You're serious. Jesus, Sam."  
  
Sam moves closer. Dean presses himself further against the Impala. Sam's voice is soft and lulling and deceptively logically as he says, "It'll make you feel so much better, Dean. You're so hard it hurts, right?"  
  
It does hurt - it hurts - just as badly as the ache in his hole. His cock and his ass throb in unison.  
  
"All you have to do is touch your cock. You won't hurt so much, and you won't be so cranky - "  
  
"Cranky?" Dean snaps. "You want me to jack it right here 'cause...'cause you think I'm cranky? I'm not fuckin' cranky. I'm fuckin' pissed off."  
  
"You're too much of a distraction," Sam growls, ignoring his words. "You won't sit still, and you smell..."  
  
Dean smirks, no humor in his mouth. "Thought I was the one who couldn't control myself."  
  
"Why are you fighting me on this? You fight me on everything but I thought this, at least, you'd get. I'm not - I'm not trying anything here. I just want to get home in one piece, man."  
  
Dean doesn't quite believe him, but even in his heat haze, he can see where Sam's liar logic lies.  
  
"You're gonna have to do something. I'm gonna wreck us, or - " He shakes his head. "I just can't drive like this for another six hours."  
  
"I...can't," Dean says, even as his dick twitches in his jeans, even as his thighs and calves, coated in slick, stick to the denim. "Not with... Just can't."  
  
Sam regards him, quiet and still, for several heavy moments. The muscles of Dean's thighs are itching to explode, but Dean knows he can't run. Sometime in the four years Sam had lived in the light, he’d gotten faster than Dean, stronger. If Dean could think without desperation to have his brother back or without heat, maybe he’d have a chance. But he can only play the cards he has, and none of them are high enough to wriggle from Sam’s grasp.  
  
"Okay.” Sam watches Dean a bit longer before releasing a breath. He's preparing, but Dean doesn't know what for. "Okay."  
  
Dean remains still as Sam strides towards the driver's seat. Dean’s body is still urging him to flee or submit while his brain urges him to press his fingertips into ebony metal, to calm himself. He's battered from impossible need to impossible want. When Sam rounds the Impala, he's bruised.  
  
"I can give you something."  
  
“What?”  
  
"It'll...it'll make you sleep."  
  
Huffing, Dean rolls his eyes and presses his head against the Impala's frame. "Sleeping pills don't help with heats. Won't even knock me out."  
  
"They aren't sleeping pills."  
  
Dean pauses. He peers at the bottle in Sam’s hand, then Sam's face. There is nothing but exhausted desperation.  
  
For the first time since the mess exploded, Dean softens. "Are you okay, Sammy?"  
  
Sam startles, face opening and eyes widening. The gold tint of them is eerie and beautifully warm in the twilight.  
  
It occurs to Dean that this isn't his baby brother as much as this isn't him. Sam is playing Alpha, playing him, pushing so hard to prove their biology will bind them that he's tearing through their already stitched together flesh.  
  
"I'm tired, Dean. Of fighting with you, smelling you, not touching you." He grips the bottle hard enough for the pills to rattle. "Just. Jerk off, or take the pills. You gotta do something, man, because I'm losing my mind right now."  
  
Been losing it for a while, really, but Dean tucks his quip under his tongue. His little brother is shaking in his bones, fragile despite his breadth and strength and testosterone. Dean wonders if Omegas aren't the only ones who suffer under their hormones.  
  
"Okay, Sammy," Dean agrees gently. Sam's gaze snaps; he looks terribly young in his haze and the fading light.  
  
"Okay," Sam repeats, though he doesn't sound as if he believes it. He swallows sharply and pours two pills into his hand. He clicks his tongue, remembering something he's forgotten, and opens the Impala's backdoor to pull a bottle of Evan Williams from a seat.  
  
Dean raises his eyebrow as Sam passes him the pills and whiskey. "Been holdin' out on me."  
  
Sam smiles, soft and sure, his Sammy smile that lights Dean up inside. Dean can't quite manage to smile back, but he nods.  
  
He brings the bottle to his lips. Sam is watching him sharply, biting his lip.  
  
"What?"  
  
Shrugging, Sam offers a tight grin, Sammy disappearing under the sharpness. "Just - I thought you'd flip out on me again. Accuse me of drugging you, or something."  
  
Dean takes a deep swig. The liquor burns him on the inside, along with the heat, but it's a self-started fire, and Dean relaxes into it.  
  
"I know you wouldn't do that.”  
  
He wants to say more, pick and pull at the brief rawness Sam flashed, but he's dripping from the head of his cock and his asshole, and his muscles burn and ache, and his throat is already scabbing from everything they've thrown at each other.  
  
He brings the pills to his tongue.  
  
"Dean - "  
  
He pauses, peering at Sam over his cheekbones. Sam licks looks away.  
  
"Sammy?"  
  
"Never mind. It's - it was nothing."  
  
Taking a deep breath, Dean downs the pills and another shot of whiskey.  
  
-  
  
Coming back to consciousness is a gradual process.  
  
It’s the smell of a cinnamon and grease that first greets him. Dean takes a breath of warm and sweet and burrows into the softness around him.  
  
So much softness, all of it cool as it kisses comfort into his skin.  
  
Bare skin, no longer buzzing and burning with his heat. His cheek,  
neck, arms, belly, thighs, feet. No ache in any inch of it.  
  
He mmm’s into the cloud under his cheek, snuggles the cloud under his  
arm, and rubs his legs together. They drag against the cloud under his  
body.  
  
Slowly, he blinks his eyes open. The world is bathed in soft light. He stretches his arm above his head, fingertips sliding over cool leather. Tilting his head, he sees his hand pressing into a deep brown headboard.  
  
Swanky place, he thinks, trying to remember when he had found a motel this nice or an Alpha with -  
  
Realization slams into his brain. Memories explode on impact.  
  
Sammy. Sammy Sam, desperation, heatheatheat, pills, comfort overtaking him and -  
  
"Sam!" he growls, pushing the comforter from his body. His legs don't tremble when he plants his feet on the floor. Nothing trembles, shakes or aches.  
  
Nothing but his ass.  
  
"Sammy!" Panic is rising in his throat, breaking his voice, but he presses through it to scream for his brother again. "Sam!"  
  
The scent of fat and sweetness - bacon and cinnamon toast, one of his comfort combinations that Sammy used to wrangle for him when they were kids - moves closer.  
  
Dean can hear the clink of glass against glass, a plate against wood, his brother's footsteps. He looks to the door as the knob turns.  
  
His breath catches at the sight of his brother, dressed down in a t-shirt and sweats, holding a tray of food, smelling like Dean's own slick and desperation.  
  
"You son of a bitch."  
  
Dean is on his feet and lunging for Sam's throat before he realizes he's moved.  
  
"Dean, please, just - "  
  
Sam's words sink back into his mouth as Dean slams into him, sending them both crashing into a dresser. The tray drops on Dean’s bare feet, hot bacon sizzling his skin and orange juice dripping between his toes. Glass splinters around him.  
  
Dean presses his forearm into his little brother's windpipe, keeping the pressure even and steady even as his frenzied rage bites for blood.  
  
"Tell me you didn’t," Dean demands, not knowing why. His heat has cooled, and there is an ache in his ass that is sharp and gaping. An idiot could read the writing on Dean's skin. "Tell me. Fuckin' tell me."  
  
Sam swallows, throat bobbing against Dean's arm. "I didn't want to."  
  
Despair floods his system. It drowns the rage, the confusion, until the only thing breathing is his pain.  
  
"I never wanted our mating to be like this." Sam's words come in strained puffs. "I'm so sorry, Dean, but I had to."  
  
"You had to," Dean repeats numbly.  
  
"I'm sorry - "  
  
"Was it good?" Dean sneers. "With me just lying there? Was it everything you imagined, Sammy?" Sam tries to shake his head, but Dean only presses harder. Watching his brother's eyes water, listening to him gasp for breath, Dean snarls. "Was it? Is that how you like it,  
huh, Sammy? That you're fuckin' kink?"  
  
He could kill Sam, he realizes as he increases the pressure. He doesn't ease his arm from Sam's windpipe, doesn't stop screaming in Sam's face. He's caught in a frenzy more dangerous and desperate than heat.  
  
"Did you ask the Betas you've fucked to pretend to be asleep for it, or did you drug them too? That what you were thinking about at the motel when you were jerking it? How you were gonna fuck me over?"  
  
Alpha growl reverberating through the room, Sam finally brings his palms to Dean's chest and pushes.  
  
Dean stumbles backwards, but he catches himself on the last stuttering step. With his own snarl, he surges towards his brother, fist flying first.  
  
He connects with his brother's cheek. The dull slap of his knuckles on Sam's face isn't enough though, not nearly enough, and he raises his other fist to punch his stomach.  
  
Sam keels, arms wrapping around his middle instinctively.  
  
"Stop," he snarls, and Dean doesn't. He just keeps throwing his fists, his feet, aiming to hurthurthurt, knowing he could rip Sam's heart out of his chest and not hurt Sam as much as he's hurting now.  
  
He has Sam cornered, crowded into the v between the wall and the dresser, hands up in defense but no sign he’s going to strike Dean back. Yet.  
  
His knuckles are aching as he moves in closer. It’s a good ache, one he hasn’t felt in far too long.  
  
Sam took that, he reminds himself. Sam took everything.  
  
Rearing back to land a kick to Sam’s shin, he missteps, crunching his heel into a shard of glass.  
  
“Son of a – ” He stumbles back, nicks the toe of his other foot on a different piece. “Son of a fuckin’ bitch!”  
  
Sam, who has shoes on, steps through the broken glass in a lighting snap of movement. One arm curls behind Dean’s lower back, the other around his knees as Sam ducks. Suddenly Dean is hoisted in his baby brother’s arms.  
  
“Get your hands off me,” he growls, a breath before Sam deposits him in the bed.  
  
He snarls and moves to press himself against the headboard, as far away from Sam as he can be, and unthinkingly digs his injured heel into the give of the mattress.  
  
“Fuck – ”  
  
“Stop moving,” Sam huffs, keeping a few feet from the bed, holding his hands up at his sides. “Dean. There’s glass stuck in your heel, you’re only getting it deeper, stop.”  
  
Panting and pumped of adrenaline, Dean keeps squirming until Sam’s words sink in. He can feel the edges of the glass in his skin, the wet heat on his foot.  
  
“I’m gonna go get the first aid kit, okay? Don’t move.”  
  
“Like hell you are!” Dean exclaims as Sam hurries to the bathroom. “I’m outta here, Sammy! I don’t care what the law is, I don’t give a fuck if I end up in some Omega half-way house, I don’t give a fuck! I’m not staying here! You hear me? Not with you!”  
  
The words make the feelings swell, inflaming Dean’s system, and he doesn’t think about the blood or the glass, only thinks about the betrayal, as he slams his feet to the floor.  
  
“What are you doing? Shit, Dean, get back in the bed – ”  
  
Dean tries to sidestep him as he moves into the room. He hisses as the glass digs into him. Sam seizes his weakness, wrapping his arms around Dean’s middle to maneuver him the few steps to the bed.  
  
Muscle memory has Dean gripping Sam’s forearms, searching for the pressure points he knows will loosen Sam’s hold. Pain has him sagging into the bed with heavy breaths.  
  
“Get offa me,” he pants. Sam moves, not fast enough, and he thrashes.  
“Get off get off get off – ”  
  
“I’m off. I’m not touching you.”  
  
Dean blinks to see Sam standing a step from the bed, hands flashing surrender.  
  
“Don’t. Don’t touch me.”  
  
“I’m not – ”  
  
“Ever, Sam. You don’t ever touch me again.”  
  
Sam reeks of desperation as he swallows, flashes a worried glance to Dean’s heel.  
  
“I need to get you cleaned up.”  
  
“Leave the stuff. I’ll do it myself.”  
  
“Dean, that’s a deep cut. You need – ”  
  
“I can take care of myself!” Dean shouts. He can’t look at Sam; can’t see the pitiful, begging look, the wet eyes. “Get. Out.”  
  
Sam doesn’t move or speak. Dean doesn’t know if he even breathes. He still can’t look at his brother.  
  
The towels slide into Dean’s vision. He closes his eyes to avoid the sigh of Sam’s fingers, pushing the rest of the supplies onto the bed.  
  
“Please let me help you,” Sam says – not asking – quietly. He sounds choked, as if he’s been crying, or is.  
  
“Just get out, Sam. Get away from me.”  
  
Dean doesn’t open his eyes until he hears the door close.  
  
-  
  
Dean hasn't seen Sam in five days. Not since his brother shuffled into the room to clean the glass and bring Dean his duffle. Dean hadn't spoken to him, hadn't met his glittering eyes, hadn't heard the wrenching I'm sorry and I was wrong.  
  
He hears Sam now - the heavy and soft sounds of his footsteps, the clang of plates when he sets food outside the door, his apologies, his sobbing spells as he huddles in the hallway – but Dean doesn't see him. The noises of his brother tense him, and he doesn't move from his perch by the window until silence settles. Then he wraps himself in the quiet stillness, feeling protected and calm enough to breathe only when his breathing is the only noise in the world.  
  
He doesn't speak. Not to Sam, not even when he begs. Not to himself. His voice is too rough, will break the tentative things keeping him together.  
  
He eats, and counts the days by it. There is light then breakfast, lunch, dinner, dark, sleep. There is light and breakfast again, and Dean knows he's made it through another day.  
  
He takes the fucking collar off and leaves it on the tray. Sam doesn't try to return it.  
  
He sleeps. Hours and hours, as if his body is making up for all the sleep its lost.  
  
He gets himself off. Being knotted had cooled the basest fire and eased his aches, but by the time darkness cloaked his suburban prison on the first night, he was burning again. He dug for his knotted dildo in his duffle, half expecting not to find it, half expecting Sam to have stolen it so Dean had to crawl to him for a knot.  
  
Sam hadn't taken the dildo. Dean had been so grateful, he'd fallen to his knees and sobbed. Sobbed until Sam knocked at the door. He stopped, forced himself to stop, until Sam left.  
  
He hasn't cried since.  
  
-  
  
On day 16, Sam brings in reinforcements.  
  
"Dean?" his brother begins tentatively. Dean watches a red bird as it flutters in a tree across the street. It's bright, vibrant, like a slash of blood on snow. "You ate your breakfast pretty quick today, so I thought you might want a snack. And some company."  
  
Another bird, white with a soft yellow belly, flitters on the branches.  
  
"Not from me. I, uh, brought a friend."  
  
The words tug at Dean's attention. Bobby, he thinks, fuzzy, as if his brain is far away from his body. He doesn't smell dog hair and grease and home cooked meals, though, and he frowns at his window reflection.  
  
"It's okay. You can say hi."  
  
"Okay. Um. Hi, Mr. Dean. My name is Emily."  
  
The voice is clear and high, golden bell sweet, and utterly disarming.  
  
"It's alright if you can't say hi,” Emily says softly. "I don't like to talk sometimes when I don't feel good, and Mr. Sam said you don't feel good."  
  
Dean presses his palm to his mouth. He locks words and sickness behind his lips, but he still feels nauseous.  
  
"I don't feel good a lot," she continues. "I don't really leave my room much either. But I'm feeling good today, and my Omega Mommy said I could come visit you, since you're Mr. Sam's friend, and Mr. Sam is our friend. And I was... Um, I was just wondering... Because when I  
don't feel good, I like to have tea parties. Mr. Sam is really good at tea parties. But he can't come to one today. So maybe, Mr. Dean, you could come? You don't have to leave your room. I brought the tea party to you!"  
  
Her happy little voice floods the room. It's melodic, playing smoothly along Dean's ribs, and things begin to hurt. The cotton of quiet and still begins to splinter as she continues to chat.  
  
"Mr. Dean?"  
  
He hears Sam's sigh, the movement of jeans as Sam crouches. "Thank you so much for coming over," he says soothingly. "And for inviting us to your party. But I think Dean still isn't feeling quite up to it. I'm sure he really appreciates the invitation though. Maybe next time - "  
  
Dean strides across the room and opens the door. Sam is kneeling by the most gorgeous little girl Dean has ever seen. Dark skin, long hair as black and beautiful as the Impala on a summer night curling around her shoulders, and huge, chocolate eyes that pull Dean into their depths immediately. She grins wide enough to show a missing tooth. Dean smiles back, watery and thin, and the movement brings a bite of heat to his eyes.  
  
"Good morning, Mr. Dean!"  
  
Sam stares at him as if he's a revelation of God. "Dean," he breathes, reverent and pained, as if he even has the right to speak Dean's name.  
  
Dean’s voice is rough and dry and barely above a whisper, but he speaks. "I heard something about a tea party?" he asks, trying to offer a smile, but he was right.  
  
In the movement and the noise, everything breaks.  
  
-  
  
Sam leaves them to their tea party. He doesn't say where he's going, and Dean doesn't ask. He wants to tell him to never come back, but the idea of it, of actually never seeing Sammy again, is too stark and painful to tempt. It shouldn't be. He should want Sam gone, Sam away from him, always. He should.  
  
Emily is eight-years-old, likes tea parties, pink dresses, and arm wrestling, and thinks something called One Direction is the best thing that's ever happened to the world.  
  
She doesn't feel good a lot. Dean can't quite put all the pieces together, but from what he can tell, she's been very sick for a very long time. Cancer, probably, some form of evil he can't fight.  
  
Dean doesn't know how long they party, only knows that it's over when Emily declares she's ready to go home.  
  
He panics. It's a detached, quiet panic, but his palms sweat and his heart races at the prospect of walking her down the street back to her home.  
  
They're at the front door, and Dean is biting his lip, asking, "Can your Mom come pick you up?"  
  
Emily rolls big, brown eyes that already have Dean wrapped up and twisted. "I'm eight, Mr. Dean. I can walk home."  
  
"Not gonna happen," he says as he stares at the door, wooden and thick and so much larger than Dean remembers doors being.  
  
"You don't have to worry about me," she tells him with a smile and a pat to the hand. "I'm a big girl. Bad things are scared of me."  
  
Dean laughs until he starts crying. Emily drops her boxed tea set and throws her arms around his middle.  
  
"Don't cry, Mr. Dean, I'll call my Alpha Mommy, and she can drive me. It'll be okay, okay?"  
  
Dean holds her until the tears stop.  
  
-  
  
Luring Dean from his devastation with a kid was a dirty ploy, but it was effective. Dean is almost glad Sam dangled sick, sweet Emily in the face of his depression.  
  
Like every other attempt Sam has made to tempt or trap Dean in his Omega role, it’s backfired.  
  
Bad things are scared of me.  
  
Dean's adaptable. He always has been, always had to be. Sam's as aware of this as he is of anything else about Dean – the devotion he has for his family, the unwavering love.  
  
The options to escape suburban fate were slim before. If Dean ran, Sam would track his steps. If Dean fought him, Sam would fight back, and even if he couldn’t keep Dean pinned physically, he could brandish his legal Alpha claim as well as any weapon.  
  
Now that Sam’s claim has been consummated, it’s only stronger. Legally, Sam’s ownership can’t even be questioned. Biologically, Dean’s Omega brain is craving the last Alpha that knotted him, a desire that could be curbed if Dean had time and space and pills to cool the attachment.  
  
Even if Sam was as crazy with desperation as he claims, Sam wasn’t out of his mind. He knew he was tying Dean to his role as Sam’s Omega when he tied them together; he knew he was tying Dean’s hands to adapting.  
  
Bad things are scared of me.  
  
But Sam forgot that after Dean broke under devastation and desperation, he pieced himself back together and was sturdier for it. Sam forgot it wasn’t an Omega instinct to nurture that drew Dean to small, shining eyed children.  
  
Sam forgot that before Dean adapted, he fought.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE EXTRA WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: dub-con/non-con for both Dean and Sam.

Not acknowledging Sam's betrayal is easy.  
  
Numbing his rage, his despair, is easy.  
  
Focusing on the end game and repressing every flicker on the way is easier still.  
  
It's all easy, all simple, like pretending he isn't hungry when his stomach is caving in, or a slice in his belly doesn't hurt even as he bleeds out, or the burning slide of the whiskey he now carries in his back pocket.  
  
It's as easy as being the Worst Omega Ever, which is almost as fun as it is simple.  
  
Being an intentional embarrassment to good Omegas everywhere. Seeing the neighbors peeking through their windows at him when he works on the Impala in their driveway, shirtless and without an Alpha hovering over him. Watching Sam try to shovel down the new inedible thing he's whipped up for dinner, only to flush green and hurry to the master bathroom. Flashing his uncollared throat in the supermarket, strolling downtown with no Alpha by his side and no Alpha scent on his skin.  
  
He's a source of scandal in their little neighborhood, where all the lawns are Technicolor green and the same height. Other Omegas watch him with wide eyes, flushes on their cheeks, and Alphas watch him with a shake of their heads. The Beta family’s even side eye him when he passes them on his morning runs.  
  
It bothers Sam, which is the whole point, but instead of tripping himself up in frustration or kicking his substandard Omega to the corner, Sam flashes his dimpled smile to mollify the neighbors and keeps his big mouth shut behind closed doors.  
  
Sam's lackluster response doesn't deter Dean's fight. It only encourages Dean to up the ante, to push hard then harder.  
  
Dean can see the cracks in his brother begin to widen. He presses himself into the grooves of Sam's skin, digs until scratches become wounds become caverns. He applies the pressure, waiting for Sam to snap, waiting for the opportunity to re-build his life with the broken pieces.  
  
-  
  
Sam knows Dean's rebellion is punishment for his betrayal. He seems to think it’s pointless punishment, though, as if Dean is planning to engage in petty pranks for the rest of their mated life. He hasn't put together that Dean doesn't give a fuck if their mating has been consummated and is now legally unbreakable, doesn't give a fuck that Sam's claim has wormed its way into his blood, that Dean is more determined than ever to break Sam's hold on him by whatever means necessary.  
  
Empathy has never been Sam's strong suit, though - not when it comes to Dean. He never could understand Dean's reasons or reason. Now, muddled as their world is, it's not a surprise Sam can't slip into Dean's boots long enough to see the path they're treading.  
  
-  
  
There are a handful of still moments in which Sam tries to speak his regret, but Dean won't let him.  
  
Sam is sorry because his plan didn't work. He thought he could fuck Dean into submission, thought Dean would rise from the betrayal as the perfect Omega, but his plan exploded spectacularly in his face.  
  
Sam is only backpedaling because Dean reacted with anger instead of unavoidable acceptance, rebellion instead of submission. Sam is pained because instead of a mate, he has a defective Omega who paints the town in scandal and still won't touch him.  
  
Dean doesn't want to hear his apologies anymore, his regret, his despair. The words are empty in the devastation of Sam's actions, because no matter how many times Sam whispers he wishes he could take it back, he can't.  
  
So Dean does his best to keep those Sammy words, those Sammy hurt noises from leaving Sam’s mouth, and eventually everything is quiet.  
  
-  
  
Sam's last semester schedule keeps him from the house for most of the day, and his internship at a local law firm takes his evenings.  
  
When he's home, he shores his walls in the study.  
  
Dean does make a point to interrupt him as often as he can, usually with another stomach sinking meal in his hands. He remembers how annoyed Sam would be when he interrupted homework when they were kids. Sam always offers a tight white smile when Dean opens the door with a tray of "food", but Dean can tell he's irritated, on edge, exhausted.  
  
Only a matter of time, Dean tells himself. Only a few more inedible meals. Only a few more interruptions. Only a few more papers ruined by spilled drinks and only a few more textbooks lost when Dean cleans the house and Sam will break, decide Dean's not worth the trouble, have the claim stricken, allow Dean to leave and not chase him.  
  
Tonight, Dean is serving one of Sam's favorites: tomato soup and grilled cheese. Of course both items are ice cold; he slid them in the freezer for 10 minutes before plating them. The water in Sam's glass is warm.  
  
He takes the last step to the second floor. Sam's voice, which had been wafting soft and indistinguishable down the stairs, grows clearer. Dean can't hear words but he can hear tone, the gruffness and desperation of it.  
  
Dean moves down the hall toward the study. He can hear Sam’s voice wafting, and slows his steps. Sam’s words are garbled tones of desperation until Dean comes to the door.  
  
" - and I don't know how much longer he can keep it together," Sam is saying. Dean knows instantly Sam's referring to him - who else would he be talking about - and clenches his jaw, wonders who Sam is spinning tales of his Omega defects to. A friend, a lawyer, a therapist. A representative from one of those camps that 'help' wayward Omegas find their path of submission.  
  
Dean shivers. Sam wouldn't put him there: even Sam doesn't believe in those camps. Of course, Sam has surprised him before.  
  
"It's not just that, Bobby," Sam sighs. Relief drowns Dean from the inside out, and he aches, a feeling too tender to live in his new black hole heart. "He's not just trying to get back at me for bringing him here. He's... I don't know what he's doing. I don't know if he does, either. But he's losing it. And I'm not doing much better."  
  
Dean stutters; Sam is apparently more aware than Dean gave him credit for. Not that he's done anything with that awareness.  
  
"Yeah, I know. But he won't even let me talk to him. I don't even know what to say."  
  
A pause.  
  
"No, I don't think a change of scenery is going to help. It'd be the same problems, just different scenery."  
  
A pause. Dean wonders if Bobby is up to speed on the 'problems', but he knows Sam hasn't told the old man about the straw that finally broke then re-shaped the camel's back.  
  
"I don't know. If you could just talk to him - "  
  
A pause. Sam's next words carry the spice of anger.  
  
"I'm not asking you to say anything like that, Bobby. Just. If you could just ask him...find out how I can fix this."  
  
A pause, a sigh. Dean can hear the bump of Sam's head as it falls against the door.  
  
"Yeah, I get it. I made the mess, I clean it up. But I didn't think... I thought I was making things better, Bobby. I thought I was doing what was best for him. Even when it hurt me, I thought I was doing right by him. S'all I ever wanted, y'know? To take care of him. Try to repay everything he did for me, gave up for me. I don't know how to make it right. I thought I was making it right. Now everything's so screwed up in my head I don't know what to do."  
  
A pause. Dean wishes he could hear whatever Bobby is telling Sam; hear his voice, at least, the timber of it when he tells them they're idjits and rolls a sigh.  
  
"I can't, Bobby," Sam says, tears rolling salt waves that Dean can taste in the back of his throat. "That's the one thing I can't do. I don't know how."  
  
Dean doesn't need to hear Bobby's words to know what he advised, what Sam can't do.  
  
 _Let him go_.  
  
-  
  
Dean is drying dishes as aggressively as he can, humming Zepplin through clenched teeth, when the doorbell rings. Glancing at the clock, he sees Emily is early for their play date. The softness, the good he feels at Emily’s little grin, has him smiling as he walks to the door.  
  
It’s not Emily.  
  
"Hi," a man - a boy, because he can't be much older than Sam - greets. His hair is floppy but not as long or wild as Sam's, and his smile is plastic in its cheerfulness as he extends his hand. "I'm Brady. Friend of Sam's. You must be Dean."  
  
Dean glances at the offered hand. He considers it for several moments, untrusting of the unfamiliar skin and the cold glean of the unfamiliar smile. Brady slides his hand into his pocket. His smile dims, but it's more sincere without the false shine.  
  
"Sam said you weren't exactly like other Omegas," Brady says, gaze appraising as it dips over him.  
  
The gaze gnaws at Dean's already inflamed irritation. Crossing his arms over his chest, leaning in the doorway so his bulk blocks the house, he pointedly informs Brady, "Sam's not here."  
  
"I actually just came by to drop something off for him."  
  
"Well, I'll make sure he gets it."  
  
Brady's smile turns thoughtful as he dips into the purse, pulling out a plain but thick yellow envelope and handing it over. When Dean reaches to take it, he doesn't let go.  
  
"Sam says you're good with cars."  
  
Dean clenches his jaw. He yanks on the envelope, but Brady's grip doesn't falter. Fucker is stronger than he looks.  
  
"You got somethin’ needs fixin’," Dean grits, "you oughta take it to a shop."  
  
Laughing, Brady releases his hold. "I have a shop. Well, my family does. My dad is looking for someone to help around part-time. Do some oil changes, make coffee, keep the appointment book straight, pick up some labor."  
  
It takes a moment for Dean's brain to process the words, the meaning of them. He eyes Brady suspiciously as he asks, voice flat and disbelieving, "You're offering me a job?"  
  
"I'm offering to put in a good word for you, if you're looking for a job." Brady shrugs. "I know most Alphas don't approve of their Omegas doing physical labor, but Sam's a little more...progressive."  
  
"A little," Dean snorts.  
  
Brady laughs again, clear and genuinely amused. "A little," he agrees. He drags one last assessing look over Dean from head to toe, then turns to leave.  
  
-  
  
Dean rips into the package before the front door closes. He shifts through the papers, devouring the lines and paragraphs, the legal jargon he doesn't understand. He can't stop sifting through it, even when Emily's Omega drops her off, when Emily sets the table for tea, when Emily sighs for the hundredth time and pinches his arm.  
  
"Ow," he complains, startled at the sharp sting. He looks up from the page to see Emily's arms crossed and mouth shaped into a pout.  
  
"You're not being a very good play date today, Mr. Dean. It's rude to read at the dinner table."  
  
"Well it's rude to pinch people."  
  
"What are you reading, anyway?" she asks, peering over his arm to the scattered pages.  
  
Dean isn't sure, exactly. The papers are printed with information about Omega safe houses, places and people who take in runaway Omegas and give them new lives, away from abuse and discrimination. Dean's run into a few on his hunts - vamps in particular love to storm the sanctuaries and turn them into all they can drink buffets. They're illegal, hard to keep secret and safe from what Dean has heard and from what he sees in the articles.   
  
Still, there are stories of plenty of Omegas who were given access to therapy, to medicine, given new identities, reunited with families or saved from them. Omegas who found peace before the networks were destroyed.   
  
Looking over page after page has his heart speeding, his mind racing.   
  
"Nothing," Dean finally answers, licking his lips. "I'm sorry for being rude. Let me put this away, okay? Then we can get this party started."  
  
-  
  
There are two reasons Brady would give him the envelope.   
  
Brady's a pig. Sam's overshared the tales about his rebellious Omega, and Brady, knowing Dean wouldn't behave and would read the papers before handing them over to Sam, handed them over in an effort to discourage Dean's bad behavior.  
  
It seems like the most likely explanation. But.  
  
Brady also offered him a job Sam isn't likely to approve of but won't forbid Dean from doing, not now, not in his state of guilt and regret. There could be an Omega sympathizer under that plastic smile. This could be a message to Dean. This could be hope.  
  
He slides the packet under the bed in the guest bedroom he's claimed as his own.  
  
When Sam comes home, Dean doesn't mention the papers. Sam doesn't ask about them, or Brady, as if he has no idea.  
  
-  
  
Dean mulls over Brady's deliverance, his offer, over the next day. He watches the sun hit the leaves, watches the leaves fall and spin in the wind, and remembers the feeling of light on his skin.  
  
Even if Dean found one of these safe houses, managed to get himself fixed up with a shiny new identity, Sam would find him. Sam would tear the security apart to drag him home. Nothing as flimsy as walls or a group of people or a forged birth certificate, forged personhood papers showing his Alpha owner as someone who doesn't even exist, could keep Sam's hands from him.   
  
Nothing could keep Sam from looking for him, and if Sam looks, he'll find.   
  
The only way Dean's escape to a safe house would work is if there was no doubt Sam would try to chase him.   
  
It is then that Dean hears what Brady told him, whether Brady meant to or not.  
  
Dean can’t remove himself from Sam’s want because Sam will drag him back in. Unless Sam decides he doesn't want to look for his runaway Omega. Unless Sam decides Dean isn't his Omega at all.   
  
To escape Sam’s want, he has to kill it. He hasn't been able to even dampen it with his bad food and scandalous behavior. He has to find something else, something big, something that will devastate Sam completely, leave no doubt in either of them when Dean runs, Sam won't follow.   
  
Freedom is going to require more than breaking Sam. Dean is going to have to destroy him.  
  
-  
  
That evening, Dean cooks two frozen pizzas and plucks an armful of beers from the fridge.  
  
He knocks on the study door, twice, then calls, "Sam? I got dinner."  
  
A strained beat, and Sam answers, "Okay."  
  
"Hands are kinda full."  
  
Dean hears Sam clamber from his desk, hears his steps as he walks to the door and opens it.  
  
Sam blinks, confused, as he takes in the spread in his arms. "That looks..."  
  
"Edible?" Dean offers, smiling cheekily even as he allows his own eyes to soften. It's his quietest, sincerest form of apology, and Sam is quick to spot it - to buy it.  
  
Sam's next words are a desperate attempt at casual, belied by the wetness growing in his gaze. "You look like you're overflowing, dude. Let me carry something?"  
  
Dean tumbles three beers towards Sam, and Sam takes them, so eager for the small sign of Dean's acceptance his hands fumble with the cans.  
  
Dean sets the plated pizza on the desk, then places one beer in front of Sam's chair. He plops himself in the dining chair Sam slid on the other side of the desk.  
  
Sam takes his own seat, setting the other beers on the table. He eyes his pizza with a flash of hunger, but his first bite is tentative.  
  
"This is good," Sam says appreciatively after he swallows.  
  
"I'll give my compliments to the chef."  
  
Sam's response is a tight but hopeful grin.  
  
They continue to eat in silence. It's not comfortable by any means, but Dean is calm enough not to squirm with every furtive glance Sam gives him.  
  
When Dean's pizza is half gone, he pats his stomach with a loud groan. Sam smiles.  
  
"So," Dean begins, stomach rolling over the settling pizza. “I heard you the other day. Talking to Bobby.”  
  
Sam tenses mid-bite. He stares at Dean, still for a moment, before quickly chewing and swallowing. "I’m sorry. I wasn’t gonna call him, but then – with everything  - I needed help. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be pissed, more pissed than you were - "  
  
Dean raises his hand. "Whoa, Sam. That's not - I wasn't accusing you of anything."  
  
"I wasn't trying to hide anything - "  
  
"I know," Dean interrupts, because he does. He can read Sam’s nerves, sincerity, clear as a cold running.  
“I just…You were right, Sam. You were right.”  
  
Sam's eyes widen, and Dean knows instantly he has his brother on the hook. All he has to do now is spin the reel.  
  
Licking his lips, keeping his eyes wide so the burn will wet his gaze, give him the appearance of a sincere struggle, he shifts in his seat. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”  
  
“Dean,” Sam says, desperation gleaming.  
  
“What you did to me, Sammy,” Dean breathes, interrupting before Sam can regurgitate his meaningless words. “I can’t just forget it. I can’t just pretend you didn’t fuck me over,” he lies, because he can – it’s the only way he’s been surviving. “But I can’t leave. You consummated the claim. You’re my legal mate. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to live like this, man, but I don’t have any other options. So I – “  
  
“I’m sorry.” Sam’s voice is salt thick, salt sour, settling heavy over Dean’s skin. Dean realizes his gaze has fallen to his shoes. He looks to his brother, sees tears welling fat in his eyes, sees the shame they spell on his face. “I’m so – God, Dean, I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t – I was going crazy, and I thought it was the only way…”  
  
Sam shakes his head, then stands, pacing behind the desk as he pulls frantically at his hair. His movements are jerky, manic. Dean can feel his brother’s energy, so dark and desperate, buzzing through the room.  
  
“I thought if I just got it over with, you know, we could stop. You wouldn’t – I didn’t think you’d ever submit, Dean. And I couldn’t take it. I was so angry and desperate and I could – I could smell you.”  
  
Sam stops moving, then. Trickles of tears glisten on his cheeks, and despite everything, Dean wants to brush the tears away.  
  
“I thought if I just… If I just gave you an out, we could stop fighting. Get on to building a life together. But I wasn’t thinking. I was out of my mind, more than you were, with that heat. I know – it’s not an excuse, Dean, and I know you can’t forgive me.” Quietly, Sam leans against the desk, gaze dropping to his knees. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”  
  
The world stops spinning. The noises of life, birds and crickets and the rustling of trees, quiet. Everything is still, and Dean wonders if this is it – if this is what Sam breaking looks and sounds like, if this bitter thrill clogging his throat is what Sam letting him go will taste like.  
  
But Sam, shaking, turns his head, and Dean feels his trembling hope fade.  
  
“I need you to,” Sam whispers thickly. “I just – I need you. I tried to have that normal life but I was alone. And I can’t be alone like that again.”  
  
Dean’s heart beats in time with the pulse of his rage, his shame, his disgust. Self-loathing tingles with it all, anger turned inward because he knows what Sam is saying. He understands. He feels the words Sam speaks in his own blood. He’s been the alone Sam can’t be, fed on it when John would leave him on his own, when John left him for good.  
  
“Whatever I need to do, I swear I’ll do it. Just say the word and anything, Dean, I’ll do anything. But I – if you’re asking me to let you go. To break our mating, to resend my legal rights, I – “  
  
“That’s not what I’m asking.”  
  
Sam releases a watery breath.  
  
Dean breathes it in, lets his brother’s scent fill and settle in his lungs. With a fake shake of a grin, he says, “If this is gonna be my life, I gotta find a way to live in it.”  
  
“Okay,” Sam nods desperately. His face breaks into something that isn’t quite a smile, isn’t quite happiness. Something like hope. “Okay. What do you need, Dean? Anything, I swear.”  
  
“A job.”  
  
-  
  
Collars are required for all Omegas who work at Joe’s Auto Repair - all Omegas encompassing Dean and another male Omega several years younger than him. Dean hates the feel of it on his neck again, but he consoles himself that it will all be worth it in the end.  
  
The workers are nice enough. They treat Dean and Will, a slip of a brown-eyed boy whose inches and pounds smaller than Dean, more like children that have been brought to work by their fathers than fellow employees. But Dean gets to smell oil, grease. He gets to touch warm metal. He gets the gleam of metal blinding his eyes. He gets to breathe.  
  
He also gets paid a little over minimum wage. Most employees opt for direct deposit, but Joe works Will and Dean as favors, so although they’re paid less, they’re paid less in cash.  
  
Will happily hands his money to his Alpha, a pretty redhead who Dean can’t help but smile a little too brightly at. Dean leaves half of his pay on Sam’s desk every Friday afternoon. The other half he stores under his mattress.  
  
-  
  
The pile of getaway cash grows, as does Sam’s comfort in their new routine. The shadow haunting Sam’s eyes begins to fade. The nerves that shake his hands when he’s near Dean begin to calm. The shame that shaped Sam’s looks, kept him far from Dean’s space, begins to slip.  
  
Dean watches Sam believe Dean is his, believe they can re-build what Sam broke, believe that one day, he will deliver the happy life he promised to Dean all those months ago.  
  
He watches. He drinks, and he pretends, dragging Sam further and further in, so deep he might not be able to climb out once Dean’s left him alone. He feeds the bundle of money under his bed.  
  
He waits.  
  
He waits until he forgets what he’s waiting for. He waits until restless things nip at him from underneath his skin. He waits until a fire begins to spark in his belly.  
  
He waits, and as his heat blooms, he realizes it’s time.   
  
-  
  
Dean’s heat flourishes on a Thursday morning. He wakes up with his pajamas around his knees, legs twisting restless, skin soaked with sweat and slick, practically humping the mattress while two of his fingers rut shakily into his ass.  
  
In the haze of waking to a heat, panic grips him. His body and his mind seize, memories of waking in this room with the phantom feeling of Sam’s knot filling him, of Sam’s betrayal, overwhelming him in his daze.  
  
Panicked, he tries to shimmy his pajamas back to his hips, but his hands are clumsy and slip against his body. He writhes in jerks, not even sure what he’s trying to do, just unable to remain still.  
  
Something sneers in his head, a dull, distant cruelty whispering that his body wouldn't ache quite so insanely if Sam had knotted him.  
  
The realization is wrapped in haze but it calms Dean enough to ease his jerking movements. He gulps in gasps as he slips a finger inside himself. It's the barest breath of relief, only emphasizes how empty is.  
  
With a groan he reaches into the nightstand and wrestles his knotted dildo on the bed. It takes longer than it normally would to untangle the pump, to ease himself on his back and splay his legs wide. He needs so badly there isn't a thought in his head other than how good it's going to feel when he inflates the cold, lifeless knot into his burning hole.  
  
He stabs the dildo inside with one swift, punishing movement. It glides easy as sin to the hilt. He doesn't waste much time teasing himself - slams the toy inside a few times, twists it once and cries out at the sensation - before grappling for the pump, filling the emptiness inside until he can finally fills his lungs with air.  
  
-  
  
Three orgasms later, Dean is still burning, but exhaustion has cooled the sickest fires. His misery is now focused on the soreness in his thighs and the tired scratch in his eyes.  
  
When he can't hold his trembling legs any longer, when the dildo shakes out of his trembling fingers, he collapses on the bed. His mind clears enough that he glances at the clock, reads 11:24 AM. It takes him until 11:30 AM for his mind to clear enough to realize Sam is gone for his morning classes, but will be back for a quick lunch before going into his internship.  
  
Dean's brain is bubbling under the estrus, but he can scrape enough brain cells together to recognize his chance to rip Sam's desire for him asunder. He needs to kill every needy, wanton thing Sam feels for him. Sam won't let him go for anything else.  
  
-  
  
The pleasant voice who answers Dean's call to Discrete assures him the Alpha he's ordered will arrive within the hour. When he asks if he gets another Alpha free if his is late, there's no answer. He frowns when he hangs up.  
  
He works the dildo in again, not nearly as frantic as he was when he woke in the throes. He slides it slow and steady, in and out, wondering what his paid for Alpha will look like. He didn't ask for anything specific; stipulations on hair color or curves or ethnicity. The only requirement he gave was that whoever they said had a knot – a really fucking big one.  
  
He bites his lip, flush buzzing up his spine, as he imagines it: thick knot, wide as a baseball bat, full and warm and perfect. Eyes rolling at the thought, he sends up prayers to whatever will listen that his Alpha will be huge, will expand mountainous and all-consuming inside of him, will pack a knot that will leave him as stretched as Sam's had. Sam's knot had to have been, has to be, the size of a fist, a fucking baseball bat, with how empty it had left him.  
  
Abruptly, Dean realizes he's sliding a dildo inside his sloppy asshole and lazily jerking his dick and dripping drool down his chin to thoughts of how big Sam's knot is. He's imaging it, seeing his hand unable to close around it, spreading his legs wider to accommodate the phantom enormity of Sam's Alpha dick.  
  
A chill icy enough to cool every heat he's had settles over him. He rips the toy from where its buried deep in his ass and throws it across the room.

The sound of the door opening washes cool over Dean’s burning skin. He’ll probably realize that he shouldn’t have told the agency where the spare key was hid later, but he isn't in any condition to greet his Alpha.  
  
Dick still hard and wet tipped in his palm, he calls out, “Up here.” His voice is a wreck of scratches and craving. Embarrassing, but he knows some Alphas like their Omegas out of their minds with want, like their Omegas messy and needy.  
  
He can smell the cinnamon scent of Alpha wafting up the stairs. It fills the pores of his skin, clogs his nose and mouth. He welcomes it with a heavy sigh and shameless writhe.  
  
Heavy footsteps pick up in pace and volume. Half out of his mind with the need for relief, Dean doesn’t quite realize the sounds are too loud for high heels or flat boots wrapped around slim feet.  
  
“I’m in here,” he pants, unable to still his hips from pumping, fucking into his shaking fast. “C’mon on in.”  
  
The doorknob creaks, the most beautiful sound Dean has ever heard. “Fuckin’ finally,” he mutters, eyes closed, hand still working his flushed cock. He’s so damn ready to get this Alpha’s knot in him he doesn’t even bother to look at her; he just turns on his stomach, fisting his hands into the pillow and arching his back.  
  
His cheeks are heated with more than estrus, but he can’t be bothered by the knotslut his body has become. He can’t even be bothered by the whorish little cry he gives when he hears the door open.  
  
Part of him wants to crane his neck, see the body attached to the knot he craves, but a larger part of him wants the Alpha to remain nameless. He doesn’t want to know the color of this woman’s eyes, the bounce of her hair or softness of her skin. He just wants her to fuck Sam out of him.  
  
The reality of the situation sinks just past the flames in his belly. He’s brought another Alpha into Sam’s home, to fuck Sam’s property, to break Sam enough for Dean to crawl through the cracks. For the weeks he’s been planning Sam’s devastation, he’s never felt guilty, nervous – only restless and ready. He can’t quite comprehend the things rolling through his head now that the moment's finally come.  
  
He hears, smells, the Alpha moving toward him. Something is off, but he can’t focus on the eeriness creeping up his spine. All he can do is arch further.  
  
Dean gasps as tentative fingers brush his back. He presses into the warmth, most amazing thing he’s ever felt, and buries his face into the pillow.  
  
“ _Dean_.”  
  
Dean jerks away from the touch, frightened and quick as startled prey. He scrambles off the bed, tripping over the sheet and his own feet, barely managing not to fall as he stumbles and plasters his back against a wall.   
  
Sam ( _Sam Sam of fucking course it was Sam how could he be so damn stupid_ ) stays perfectly still, the bed and a few feet of carpet between them. It's not enough.   
  
"Dean," his brother breathes again, reverent. His eyes can't quite stay on Dean's face, keep slipping over his bare chest and the pink swell of his cock and the slick shining on his thighs. Sam licks his lips, nostrils flaring as he scents Dean's estrus. He looks a second away from pouncing. Dean presses himself further into the wall. "Dean - "  
  
"Get out."  
  
Eyebrows pinched, Sam asks, "What?"  
  
"Get the fuck out," Dean repeats, angry and helplessly turned on.   
  
"I thought." Sam shakes his head, frowns. "You told me to come up here. You said - "  
  
"I didn't think it was you!"  
  
Sam stumbles back as if Dean dealt him a physical blow. Which is good, of course, which is the plan. Dean just thought he'd be clearer, calmer from being knotted, before he delivered the cut that would finally bleed Sam's want out.   
  
"What?" Sam repeats, voice shaking and eyes wet.   
  
Taking a deep breath, ignoring the gush of slick that spills as his lungs are filled with Alpha arousal, Dean says, "I didn't think it was you. You were supposed to be in class."  
  
"Class was cancelled," Sam says quickly, expression still wounded but growing sharper. "Who did you think I was, Dean?"  
  
"None of your fuckin' business."  
  
"You're my fucking business," Sam growls.   
  
He moves forward, thighs bumping against the bed. Dean tenses. Sam doesn't usually resort to fists, but if things get physical now, there's no way Dean can fight him. If Sam gets him on his back or his belly, Dean doesn't know if there's any way he can keep his legs from spreading.   
  
Panic hammers in his heart. He didn't anticipate this: being alone with Sam, Sam's anger, the reality that Sam might decide to remind him whose knot he should be hanging off of.   
  
Swallowing hard, Dean glances at the door. He could make a mad dash for the front door, but if Sam doesn't grab him, then he's an in heat Omega naked on the streets, whose probably going to be returned to his owner if some pig doesn't swoop in for him.   
  
"Who. Did you think. I was."  
  
Dean sneers. Suddenly he's too angry to care what the consequences of this devastation will be. If it gets him fucked, kicked out, punished, dead. He just doesn't fucking care anymore. The only thing he cares about is hurting Sam.  
  
"A hooker," Dean grits. Sam's face darkens. "An Alpha."  
  
"Dean - "  
  
"There are set-ups all over the country," Dean continues, gaining momentum as the fury grows in Sam's eyes. "Alphas and Omegas that you can order just like Chinese take-out. Turns out there's a nice little place not too far from here where you can hire an Alpha to knot you through a heat for 60 bucks an hour."  
  
"Dean - "  
  
"I used your credit card, by the way. Hope you don't mind. Now if you'll excuse me, the Alpha I ordered is supposed to be here in about 20 minutes. The nice receptionist promised she'd have a big, juicy knot I could ride as long as my heat lasts."  
  
Sam shakes his head again, so fierce it looks like he's about to break his own neck. "No. No. You said. You said you wanted to fix things. You said this was your life, with me, that you were gonna learn to live - "  
  
"And this is me learning," Dean spits. "What did you think I was gonna do when my heat hit, Sammy? Ask for a repeat performance I'm actually awake for?"  
  
Sam growls as he slaps his palm flat onto the wall, thump echoing through the room. "You said you were gonna live your life with me! You said you weren't gonna try to leave me again!"   
  
"Never said I was gonna fuck you," Dean snarls, but it's weaker than he means. Sam's scent is overwhelming, and his heat is climbing higher and higher. Dean tries to shake it all from his swollen mind. He can feel his needy hole twitching, feel his dick jump.   
  
The sound of the front door opening snaps both of their attention.   
  
"Hello?" a pleasantly dark voice calls. Dean shivers at the tone. "I'm with Discrete. I'm looking for Dean Winchester."  
  
Clicking his tongue, drawing more courage than he feels, Dean looks to his brother. "That'll be my Alpha."  
  
" _I'm_  your Alpha," Sam grits.  
  
Dean's answering laugh has Sam flinching. "Jesus Christ, Sam. You claimed me without me even knowing it. Had to drag me like a caveman to live with you. Drugged me." The words are barbed but Dean pushes through the scrapes, the blood. "You fucked me. You knew I'd say no so you drugged me and you fucked me and you forced this mating that I have never wanted, will never want. Don't you get it, Sam? You'll  _never_  be my Alpha. I'll  _never_  want you."  
  
Sam looks stricken at the words, sick and sucked of life. The angry wet in his eyes is on his cheekbones now, gleaming over the rage red on his skin. His body shakes.  
  
The hired Alpha finds them like that, Dean naked and hard, Sam clothed and crying.   
  
"I am not getting paid enough for this," she mutters, glancing between Dean and Sam with kohl lined eyes. She's beautiful, dark curls falling over pale skin, curve of her breasts and waist and hips inviting Dean's heat to slip and slide.  
  
Sam glares salt loaded bullets at her and for a second, Dean is terrified not for himself, but for the woman.   
  
Then she rolls her eyes, clearly unimpressed with Sam's shaking bulk and Dean's trembling need. With nothing more than a sigh, she turns on her heel and walks away.   
  
"Wait," Dean calls weakly. When she doesn't, he thinks of going after her. Pitching his voice low and talking her into his bed. He still needs her - her knot anyway, even though he's gotten what he wanted most from her: a weapon to rip Sam apart.   
  
His brother is still bleeding out across the room, seemingly unaffected by the Alpha's dismissal. "You weren't," Sam sobs, choking as if there's cotton in his throat. "You were never gonna try, were you? You - you played me."  
  
"You drugged me," Dean snaps back.   
  
"So what? I fuck up so you fuck me up back? Are we even now?"  
  
"Not even close, Sammy. Not by a fuckin' mile."   
  
Sam's eyes are already red with the force of his despair. He regards Dean through the tearful haze before shaking his head, sniffling. Finally, voice scratched and bleeding, he says, "I told you a long time ago that I wouldn't give up on you. No matter how much you hurt me."  
  
The breath is punched from Dean's lungs, the bones shattered in his body. Denial rises with the bile in his throat. "No, Sam, you - "  
  
"I'll wait out the rest of your heat at my friend's house," Sam says. His face has smoothed into something eerie and empty and dead. His eyes are blank. "We both know I can't be around you like this. So you can just...call me, when you're ready for me to come home."  
  
Stunned, Dean can only gape at his brother. Can only gape and crumble because fuck, because God, it didn't work. Dean threw the sharpest weapon he had at Sam's crazy desire, and it's sill breathing, still beating and kicking and very much alive.   
  
"I'll call her back," Dean rasps, mind and heart reeling. "I'll get another Alpha. I'll have a knot to get me through this heat and it ain't gonna be yours."   
  
Sam clenches his jaw. The muscles jump as if they're going to spark right out of his skin. "Fine. But don't think I won't be able to find out whose knot you get stuck on, Dean. And don't for a second think this is how it's gonna stay. This heat, you don't want me. Maybe next heat you don't either. But you will. Someday, mine is gonna be the only knot you want."  
  
A no tears through Dean's throat, ruptures it, and he's choking on his own blood as he surges forward to crash his fist into Sam's nose. He's half way across the room when Sam decides to meet him, fist for fist.   
  
It's a stupid move. He  _just_  realized how dangerous, how damning it would be to find himself pressed against Sam's strength, but he's sliding across the floor anyway, pulling his fist back and aiming through his heat haze for any inch of his brother.   
  
He's so uncoordinated that not only does the punch swipe inches away from Sam, it throws him off balance, has him pitching to the side. Sam takes advantage of the weakness and rushes Dean as he sways, throwing wide arms around Dean's middle, bringing them both to the ground.  
  
Dean grimaces, body cracking and snapping as he lands on the hardwood floor, Sam a massive weight on top of him. He tries to scramble away but Sam, whose body isn't burning and aching and stupid, is able to throw one leg over Dean's hip and straddle him, trap him. Dean brings his hands up with a snarl. He doesn't think he'll land a punch, but he at this point he doesn’t care how he hurts Sam as long as he does it.  
  
He swipes at Sam's face, scratches blunt red lines into Sam's cheeks. He aims to jab a few fingers in Sam's eye next, but his brother is quick and built of power and snatches his wrists in his massive hands.   
  
Images overload Dean's fever brain. Sam is going to pin him down, the way he has so many times before, and rut into him. He's open enough that Sam won't have to struggle to get his dick balls deep in Dean; it'll probably only take one quick, angry thrust.   
  
"No," Dean snarls as Sam brings their intertwined hands above Dean's head. He writhes wildly under his brother. His body begs his mind to let it go, just for now, just swallow Sam's knot and re-work his bid for freedom later. But his survival instinct and his anger roar.  
  
He pulls the only move left in his arsenal, twisting his hips to the right then canting them sharply upwards, jerking pressure landing in Sam's crotch.   
  
Sam howls and immediately loosens his hold. Dean somehow manages to move fast enough to get his hands on his brother's chest. With a push, he dislodges Sam; with a quick movement, he gets Sam on his back.   
  
His legs slip slide against each other as he scrambles to straddle Sam's chest. He drops his entire weight, feels Sam's heart pounding wildly as he crushes his brother under the pressure.   
  
Pinned as he is, Sam can still wrestle back control. He can do it easily, with a flip of his body, so Dean takes advantage of what might be his only opportunity to wail on the Alpha swine his brother has become. His punches are weak and uncoordinated, but they fall with satisfying smacks on Sam's cheeks.   
  
He only lands a handful of hits before Sam is catching his fists again. Immediately he slides down, settles on top of Sam's hips so he can squeeze his legs, at least make it more difficult for Sam to turn their positions.   
  
The move slides his bare, slick sloppy ass along the denim rough, hot line of Sam's cock. Before Dean can realize what he's doing, he's rocking down, spreading his legs and shifting so he can get the outline of Sam's dick settled between his ass cheeks. He pushes down onto the pressure, ratchets the fire to something even hotter and more unbearable.   
  
"Dean - "  
  
"Shut up," Dean grits. A wave of helpless arousal washes over him, settles above and underneath the sickness twisting his guts with his heart. He feels two moves away from vomiting, one move away from coming. Tears and sweat burn his eyes as he rocks down again. "Shut the fuck up."  
  
Rage has never lived so wildly inside him before. Despair, need, hatred for himself and the thing that he and Sam's devotion has become, has never been so sharp.   
  
His brain echoes with his failure; his plan to devastate the way Sam holds him, his plan to have a sweet knot to coax him through his heat, his plan to be free. He doesn't have any back-up. He doesn't have any idea what will make Sam let him go now.   
  
"You ruined everything," he grits, salt heat flowing down his cheeks. "You  _ruined_  it."   
  
Sam's grip on his wrist falters as he drags his ass again, presses himself against his brother's cock like he's punishing both of them for it.   
  
He might as well. He might as well just throw everything away and roll in his ruin like the hapless little Omega he apparently is, might as well get something out of this stupid mass of wrongness and pain.   
  
Sliding down Sam's legs, Dean doesn't know if he hates himself or his brother more for the way his fingers tremble at Sam's fly. Himself, probably, definitely, for giving in, for being weak. But he's tired, and he's hopeless, because Sam is never going to let him go, and he's so turned on his teeth are on fire.   
  
"Wait,” Sam pants as Dean finally unbuttons his jeans and works the zipper down.   
  
"Fuck you. I didn't get to tell you to  _wait_." Dean digs his fingers under the waist band of Sam's underwear, curling them so he can yank Sam's briefs and jeans down at the same time, which would be easier if Sam would lift his damn hips or push the clothing away himself. He glares at his brother in frustration. "I can't - get 'em off, Sam."  
  
Sam has the audacity to shake his head. "What are you doing - "  
  
"You said I'm gonna hop on your knot eventually, right, so why fuckin' wait. Only thing I'm gonna get out of this shit."   
  
When Sam opens his mouth again, Dean growls and yanks harshly at Sam's clothes. He manages to pull them enough to scrape over the base of Sam's dick, and Sam grits at the pain. The smell of Sam, of Alpha, permeates the room as his sweat and want breathe. Frustrated, Dean pulls again.   
  
"You either get with the god damn program and get your fuckin' dick out already, or you let me go. You don't get any other options, Sam, so just make up that stupid knotbrain of yours and fuck me or drop it."  
  
Sam growls right back at him, then braces his hands on the floor, ready to push himself up.   
  
Fear and panic have Dean surging forward to slap his hands on Sam's. He can read the movements Sam is going to make: sit up, push Dean down, crowd over Dean with that furnace body and never let Dean up again, never let him breathe or see the sky. "No. You're just a knot, Sam. You stay right the fuck down."   
  
Pain etches Sam's features, but he grits his teeth and turns his head, the closest to acquiescence Dean is going to get.   
  
When Dean manages to calm enough ( _Sam is going to stay down won't take over won't be able to force anything because Dean is in control, he is_ ), he eases his weight from his brother's arms. Still teary eyed, Sam reaches between their bodies to shove his pants down to his thighs.   
  
The Alpha dick Dean wouldn't let himself drool over earlier is released. It's everything Dean tried to not let himself imagine. Pink, dark as a rose ( _a thorn_ ), long and thick enough that Dean doesn't know if his fingers could touch if he curled his hand around the flesh. Dean's hole aches, but his chest seizes, because Sam's dick looks like it could tear him apart inside as much as it looks like it could cure the fire in him.   
  
Swallowing, Dean steels the fear, the whispers of his weakness, the frenzied scream that he's giving into everything he swore he would fight. He needs this now and he wants it, wants the relief at least, and he doesn't have anything else. The promise of the knot that will grow, filling Dean’s emptiness ( _and God there are so many empty spaces inside of him_ ) is all he can see, breathe, think, taste, think.   
  
Dean takes a shuddering breath, reminds his fuzzy brain again the he's in control and that he has to keep it. As long as it's him riding Alpha dick and not Alpha dick riding him, as long as he's the one who says yes and no, he's safe.   
  
He settles himself above Sam's dick, wraps his hand around it to hold it steady while he lowers himself. Sam moans brokenly at the touch. Irritated - this isn't about Sam's pleasure - Dean squeezes him harder. Sam winces. Good, Dean thinks. He hopes this hurts Sam every bit as much as it hurts him.   
  
Sam jerks into the touch, flushed head of his cock kissing Dean's hole. Dean hisses, " _Still_." He can't breathe if Sam is going to move.   
  
With gritted teeth, Dean closes his eyes, tells himself it's just like pulling off a Band-Aid, just like slitting a throat. In one swift move, he slide down the full length of Sam's talking, swallowing endless inch after endless inch, until he's sitting flush on Sam's shaking thighs.   
  
"Ah,  _fuck_ , Dean, so - "  
  
"Shut  _up_ ," Dean shudders. The most difficult words he's ever spoken because it feels like Sam’s dick is in his throat.   
  
Groaning, he shifts his hips, rubbing Alpha dick along every spark of need he keeps buried deep inside. Electric and perfect and cool water kissing away his fever, saving him. He doesn't even need to breathe, really, not when Sam's cock has him so full, chases the ever growing empty spaces away and replaces them with  _SamSamSam_.  
  
He clenches his ass, pulling pitiful sounds from both of them. It almost hurts, how good it is, how big and perfect Sam feels inside of him.   
  
Moving sends a freight train of pleasure through his bones. He pitches forward, slow, wanting to savor the thickness of Sam's cock, half afraid he's going to rip himself if he isn't careful with this massive thing inside him, so much bigger and better than anything he's ever had. It doesn't hurt, not even a little, and Dean curls his lip as he starts to bounce himself on Sam's dick in earnest.  
  
Sam is choking on his pleasure beneath him. Dean ignores it, closing his eyes and filling his ears with his own harsh breathing. He sets a fast pace, a rough pace, jerking himself up and down. Pressure builds, a fucking volcano inside him, and he slams himself down, twists his hips with Sam buried deep inside of him. He cries out at the bone shattering sanctification of it.  
  
"Gonna come," Sam pants, sounds like he's crying again. "Gonna knot."  
  
Dean doesn't bother telling him to shut up again. He slides as far up Sam's cock as he can, asshole clinging, not wanting to let go of a single inch of perfect Alpha dick, then drops himself down harshly enough the breath is punched from him. It's worth it, though, when he feels Sam spurt hot inside of him and the knot begin to inflate all at once.  
  
Shuddering and shaking, Dean squeezes around the growing pressure. The knot expands, expands,  _expands_ , as if it's never going to stop, and Dean's heat hazed body is absolutely fine with that.   
  
Finally, to his relief and disappointment, his ass clenches, insides sucking in Sam's come, tying his body to Sam's knot.   
  
A thick knot splitting his body apart is all he needs for the fires to fall. His frenzied Omega body has what it needs, what it was designed to crave, and now that he's done his duty of sticking himself on a virile knot, his pain can ease.   
  
He gasps, half-sobbing as tears well in his eyes and dryness clogs his throat, and circles his hips, rubbing against the knot. The movements are jerky and short but burst firework perfect behind his eyes.   
  
All he needs is a little more, another few writhes and twists of hips to really work the knot in him, and he'll -  
  
Sam surges forward, sudden and rough. Dean grunts as Sam sits up, the movement jerking the knot inside of him so perfectly he feels his orgasm teeter on the edge. Then Sam shifts underneath him and he instinctively tries to pull up and away. He tries to tug himself off of Sam's knot but he can't, tied too closely together. The jerk is enough.  
  
Dean cries out as he comes messy and hot over both of them. His dick, trapped between his and Sam's trembling stomachs, spits slick on their skin. The stream doesn't stop, the intense shaking pleasure doesn't stop, for what feels like hours. Dean's never come so hard, never come like he's never going to stop coming.  
  
Tears are sliding down his cheeks when massive arms slide around his middle and a rough mouth finds his. He tries to jerk away from the kiss, but Sam brings both hands to his face, easily hold him still for Sam's tongue to lick into his panting mouth.   
  
Sam can't lead the kiss for long. Out of breath himself, he pulls abruptly away. He gulps in greedy breaths.   
  
"God, Dean," he rasps, dropping his forehead against Dean's sweat and tear slicked cheek.   
  
Sam is too close. Shouldn't be this close. Dean tries to pull away, but only tugs at the knot inside of him, keeping them tied. Panic beats at his chest. Tied, his body clinging to Sam's knot, Sam's knot clinging right back, unable to get away.  
  
Shaking his head, Dean lays his palms on Sam's chest, attempting to push distance between them as he attempts to yank the knot out of him. It hurts, but not as much as the crushing realization that he's stuck himself to his brother, he's tied them so securely together that he won't be able to separate until Sam's knot goes down.  
  
"Easy," Sam says in a gasp. "You'll hurt - "  
  
"G-get away from me." Dean tries to pull away again, winces as he body tugs on Sam's knot but refuses to let it go.  
  
"Dean, we're tied. You need to calm down, okay. You need to breathe."  
  
What Dean  _needs_ is to scramble away from the scent and sound and sight of his brother. Flashes of the night he's tried so desperately to repress fall disastrous as bombs in his head.   
  
Questions he never allowed himself to have flood his brain. Did Sam fuck him in his bed or the one Dean's been sleeping in, did he put Dean on his back or his stomach or his side, did he kiss Dean, did he look at Dean the way he's looking at Dean now, soft and worried and worn from pleasure?  
  
Dean starts squirming, muttering low, hurt sounds and 'no no no' as he pushes and pulls against the force keeping them together. Logically he knows he can't get away but he can't stop trying. The onslaught of memory is too great, and he can feel every inch of confusion and panic and betrayal, everything that overwhelmed him when he awoke to the realization that Sam had - that Sam had -   
  
A wild noise leaves him and he trashes even more violently, claws at Sam’s collar and throat. Hissing, Sam grabs Dean’s hands, pushes them between their chest, then wraps his around arms tightly around Dean, brings them so closely together that Dean’s arms are trapped between them and he can feel every inch of Sam’s skin.  
  
“Shh, shh,” Sam pants. “You’re okay. As soon as we can, we’ll untie, and I’ll – I’ll leave you alone.”  
  
Dean doesn’t believe him, but with a few more painful twists, he goes limp in Sam’s arms. With nowhere else to go, he lets his head fall into Sam’s neck. The scent of Alpha and sorrow is strongest there. Sam is still with him for several moments, then he soothes his hands down Dean’s back. It’s so gentle and tender and fucked up, so unwanted, Dean can’t stop his tears.  
  
-  
  
Knotting and sobbing out an ocean leave Dean exhausted in Sam’s arms. He doesn’t know how much time passes before Sam is able to gently tug Dean off his knot, but when Sam’s dick is finally out of him, Dean is overtaken with how empty he’s left. How bereft of relief and rightness.  
  
Sam helps him to the bed, and he’s pulled into sleep almost the moment his head hits the pillow.  
  
When he wakes up, Sam isn’t there.  
  
He can smell his brother, the Alpha pheromones reacting to his own. Anger and annoyance should be his reaction – Sam said he was going to leave Dean  _alone_ – but under the currents of failure and hopelessness, Dean can’t muster enough to feel anything else.  
  
-  
  
Dean remains in his room for the next few hours. He finds some black and white flick on TV and watches without hearing or seeing a moment of it.  
  
Time ticks and Dean’s body, stubborn and Hell bent on making sure it fulfills its biological duty, begins to simmer again. It whispers in his ear, dark and disgusting things. Dean buries his head under the pillow, but the pull in his gut remains.  
  
-  
  
It’s awkward, standing outside the door to Sam’s bedroom with his knuckles hovering a few inches from knocking. It feels too much like crawling and begging for knot for Dean not to feel like getting sick again or clawing his own skin off.  
  
Deciding to  _fuck it_ , because he already has, he opens the door.  
  
Sam is lying on his bed, clad only in a pair of thick sweats, a textbook spread in his lap and tear tracks on his face, tears still welling in his eyes.  
  
“Dean,” his brother says, shifting as if he’s been caught reading a skin mag instead of a law book, as if a quick sweep of his hand can hide the evidence that he’s been crying. “I – “  
  
Rolling his eyes, Dean steps further into the room and pushes his boxers down. Sam’s words die in his throat as Dean’s hard dick springs free, as the scent of Dean’s slick and pre-come and sweat overpower the room.  
  
“I just need a knot,” Dean grits as he moves towards the bed. “This isn’t. This doesn’t mean anything Sam.”  
  
Sam watches him crawl up the bed, expression caught between unfathomable want and sadness. “I know,” he whispers.  
  
-  
  
Dean rides Sam’s Alpha dick just as desperately as he did the first time. He closes his eyes and tries to pretend he can imagine the hooker he called, one of the countless knots he’s hung off of, but he’s too exhausted and needy to lie to himself.  
  
It’s Sam beneath him, inside of him. It’s Sam’s monster cock punching breathy noises from him, Sam’s scent that has him dizzy, that ratchets his want and has him bouncing so fast and hard he’s afraid the headboard is going to knock a hole in the drywall. It’s Sam’s hand curling around his own dick and it’s Sam’s ignoring his gasped “ _don’t_ ”, Sam’s delirious strokes up and down his cock that has him coming.  
  
Sam comes and knots a few moments later, empties everything he has into his brother and keeps it plugged into Dean’s body.  
  
Dean doesn’t panic as wildly as he did the first time. He’s too tired to muster the same violence, too resigned. He does start breathing so hard that he can’t breathe, which confuses and hurts him, but Sam rubs his hands over Dean’s chest and whispers slow and steady and soft. Dean manages to match his breathing to Sam’s words.  
  
Being stuck sitting in Sam’s lap isn’t exactly comfortable. He can’t stop shifting, pulling at Sam’s knot with sharp tugs that have both of them grimacing.  
  
“Dean. Can you. Can you just be a still a second.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You’re not gonna get us untied any faster – “  
  
“My legs hurt,” Dean grumbles.  
  
Sam’s expression softens from a grimace to understanding. Dean can barely look at him.  
  
“Next time,” Sam begins, the licks his lips. “If you want to do this again, we should – I could be behind you. That way you could lay down when we tie.” More quietly, obviously more for himself, he adds, “We could fall asleep like that.”  
  
Sam breathes the words like the most fucked up kind of fantasy. The thought of falling asleep with Sam inside of him makes him feel sick, but he nods. He can always slip away once Sam’s knot deflates, and he doesn’t think his leg muscles can strain through another dicking.  
  
-  
  
Dean doesn’t bother going back to his own room. He can see the moment Sam realizes he isn’t planning on leaving the bed; Sam takes a deep breath and sniffles like he’s going to cry again.  
  
“I’m – I was just gonna study for this test. Do you want me to – “  
  
“I don’t care what you do.”  
  
Sam is silent for a moment, then pulls his sweats back up his hips and spreads his textbook on his lap again. He grabs a highlighter from the nightstand, chews on its tip when he isn’t running it over glossy pages. Dean remembers the move from childhood, the fondness he once felt when watching Sammy study.  
  
“You missed your internship,” Dean says, not knowing why he says it.  
  
Sam glances from the textbook. “No, I called in. After, uh. Told them my Omega went into heat unexpectedly. My boss, Megan, she understood.”  
  
Dean snorts.  
  
-  
  
The next wave of his heat crashes against him sooner than he expected. Barely an hour passes before he starts rubbing his calves together, gritting his teeth, tapping his fingers. It’s not long after that before he’s dripping slick all over Sam’s sheets and grinding his ass in the bed.  
  
Sam, whose been on the same page the entire time, starts to tremble.  
  
“I’m,” Dean rasps, but he figures it’s pretty fucking obvious that he needs Sam’s knot again. He turns on his stomach, flushing with humiliation and hate for every single thing in the universe as he arches his lower back and tilts his ass in presentation.  
  
“Shit,” Sam curses. Dean hears him slide the textbook off the desk and drop the highlighter, slide his sweats off after them. Then he feels the mattress dip with his brother’s weight.  
  
The first nudge of Sam’s knee between his thighs has him jumping. “Wait,” he pants, scrambling to twist his body so he can see Sam hovering wide eyed behind him. Sam’s on all fours, a breath away from him, that blood pulsing Alpha dick curved and shiny with Dean’s own slick and Sam’s own come.  
  
Nerves on fire with as much fear as heat, Dean licks his lips. He knows it will be easier if Sam is behind him, but his hair stands on end at the thought of not being able to see his brother, of being covered so completely by him. Sam is going to bury him alive if they fuck like this, and Dean starts hyperventilating again, already feeling the dirt in his lungs.  
  
“Dean, hey. We don’t have to – you can ride me again.”  
  
Dean shakes his head. “How did you – “ he begins. But he can’t quite push the question,  _how did you fuck me the first time_ , out. He doesn’t think the answer will comfort him, make this any easier, anyway.  
  
“You wanna get on your side?” Sam asks softly after several moments.  
  
It’s the same basic principal – Sam behind him Sam in control of him Sam never letting him go – but it does sound better, like he might be able to breathe. He nods.  
  
Once he’s settled on his side, Sam slots behind him. Sam brings his fingers to brush down Dean’s side, but Dean hisses, “ _Don’t_ ,” and for once in his damn life, Sam listens. Dean takes a shaky breath before reminding Sam, “This isn’t making love. I just need you to fuck me with that stupid baseball bat dick of yours and get your knot stuck. Okay?”  
  
Sam hesitates.  
  
“ _Okay_?”  
  
“Okay,” Sam bites out, voice filled with an angry sad that trickles over the dumb things he can’t stop feeling for his brother.  
  
Dean slides his knee towards his chest, closing his eyes at Sam’s gasp. He wants to snap that his leaking, puffy, fucked out asshole isn’t something Sam hasn’t seen before, but he keeps his mouth shut. Sam slides his cockhead down the wet crease of Dean’s ass, stops to nudge it against Dean’s hole.  
  
“Gonna fuck you now,” Sam breathes. Dean bites his lip to halt the mortifying whimper Sam’s words paint. “Get my dick in you. Dean, you gotta – please, say I can – “  
  
Sam didn’t need Dean’s permission to do this the first time, Dean thinks bitterly, but he just pushes back into the thick pressure of Sam’s cock. “Fuckin’  _do it_.”  
  
With a groan, Sam slides inside, one steady thrust that has him buried so deeply in Dean’s body that Dean feels tied to him already.  
  
“ _God_. How’re you still so tight? How d’you feel so good?”  
  
“Stop – “ Dean gasps, choking when Sam pulls a few inches of his delirious cock away then feeds it back to Dean’s ass with a steady rock. “Fuck, Sam. Don’t talk. Just fuck me.”  
  
“Okay,” Sam says again, sounding much more earnest than the first acquiescence he gave.   
  
Sam picks up his pace but keeps his thrusts sturdy and rhythmic, even as his speed and power grows. Choking with every glorious move, with every piece of pleasure Sam’s dick punches out of him, Dean tries to push back. He tries to swallow up every inch of Sam’s cock that he denies him when he pulls out and thrusts back in.  
  
Soon Sam is fucking him so hard and fast that it’s impossible to meet him thrust for thrust. Dean just lies limp and pliant and so overwhelmed in pleasure tears bite his eyes while Sam growls and fucks him like he’s trying to bury more than just his know in Dean’s ass, like he’s trying to fuck his soul into Dean’s body and anchor it.  
  
Sam comes before him this time,  _rude_ , and his knot inflates. The spread of it has Dean shuddering and shaking and falling apart, shooting into Sam’s sheets.  
  
They fall asleep, side by side, still tied together. 


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been in a personal/fandom funk the past few months. Thank y'all for your patience!
> 
> I’ve edited the previous parts and included more extensive notes at the beginning. Please note this part explores Dean’s reaction to his previous actions, and is not meant as an indictment or endorsement of his actions in the fic or in real life.

The lingering aches of sex and sorrow are buried as deep as the betrayals between them, buried beneath panted moans and ragged need.   
  
"You close?" Sam tongues his ear, gnaws it, sending zings of hot-cold-yes from Dean's neck to his curling toes.   
  
He is close, teetering on the most dangerous of precipices, the one he's jumped off again and again. Something like yes or no or please scratches his lips. Sam catches it and uncurls his fingers from Dean's bruised thigh to curl them around Dean's flushed cock.   
  
"Want you to come first. Wanna feel you."  
  
Filth keeps pouring sickly sweet from Sam's mouth, and tenderness violent in its intensity keeps spilling from Sam's fingers, as if Sam thinks they're making love instead of devastating each other.  
   
Dean isn't suffering the same delusion. He woke up this morning to Sam's corded forearm locked around his waist, to Sam's face red and purple from where Dean's fists had struck him, blotchy with tears from where Dean's words had struck him harder. He woke up to the bird song of failure.  
   
All of these months, anger has been bubbling inside of him. Anger at Sam for becoming the swine Dean so despised; at a world that could twist up his sweet little brother and spit out something that would believe an Omega needed submission the way dogs needed a master; at his own helplessness, forced by Alpha dominated society and an Alpha dominated home.  
   
The anger, and the fear, and the desperation for things he could never have boiled over, burning he and Sam both.  
   
He chokes on a groan as Sam tightens his grip then runs his thumbnail along Dean's cock slit. Sam keeps tugging at his ear lobe like a god damn dog, keeps spreading pleasure Dean doesn't want or deserve.   
   
"What do you need?"  
   
It's a bullet loaded question if Dean ever heard one. He doesn't know how to answer.  
   
"Tell me," Sam presses, slowing the strokes to Dean's dick. "Show me what you need. C'mon, Dean, wanna get you there."  
   
Unable to speak, Dean slides his hand over Sam's mammoth one, forms Sam's fingers even more firmly around his throbbing cock. Sam groans into his neck. He also takes the hint, pressing his fingers tight against Dean's dick, jerking Dean off painful and furious.  
   
Dean hisses at the stinging pleasure. His asshole flutters sore-hot around Sam's dick, which has to be aching too, as tender and sensitive as Dean’s own cock. Sam doesn't give any indication of discomfort as he rocks up into Dean's next thrust down.  
   
Sam doesn't give any indication of his sorrow, either, although Dean saw it clear when he crawled out of Sam's bed this morning. It cut easy past Dean's layered rage to the tenderness he's tried to ignore. His breath caught painful in his ribs, splintered and bloodied by a shame that's still choking him.  
   
He'd wanted to devastate Sam, cut himself completely from Sam's heart. Instead he'd taken all Sam wanted to give him in the cruelest way, with a sneer, and spit it back. Instead he'd made Sam cry. All for nothing. The nasty cuts between them had only widened, and now they're both broken, bleeding out with no hope.  
   
Dean can't compare this, each cruel bounce on Sam's fat dick, to Sam's violation. But he can. Sam drugged him with pills; he drugged Sam with guilt and his scent. Sam used Dean's biology against him; Dean forged Sam's sick desire into a weapon. Sam knew he would hurt Dean; Dean knew he would hurt Sam.  
   
There are differences, Dean knows, and Sam's betrayal was blacker, more vile. There is no forgiveness or forgetting. Dean doesn't feel any more redeemable, though. The intensity of his devotion to his family, to Sam, the things he would do for Sam, has always scared him; the things he's done to Sam, that they've done to each other, terrify him.  
   
He feels sick, and filthy inside, and lost. Not even the brightness of his memories can lead him now.  
   
Sam's teeth finally slide from his ear to his neck, then down, find their home in the meat of Dean's shoulder. Dean grunts into the bite and impales himself as quick and deep as he can on Sam's cock, clenching his body tight. As he lifts himself up again, Sam squeezes his dick with a blinding pressure. It sends a spark so hot Dean stutters on the Alpha dick stuffing him.  
   
While the pleasure is bone deep, something restless and needy buzzes, keeping Dean's orgasm just below the surface. He squirms on Sam's lap, grinding Sam's cock inside of him, drawing groans from them both.  
   
"I don't," he pants through a wave of shame and frustration. "M'close but I can't, I don't know - "  
He can't bring himself to say he doesn't know what will get him off, but he doesn't. His body isn't used to the constant heat burning him from the inside out or being fucked so thoroughly, as if Sam's monster cock and monstrous desire has hollowed out every inch of him. Maybe he's just too exhausted to come again.  
   
Before he can tell Sam to forget Dean's orgasm, just knot him already, Sam brings the hand not stripping his cock to his chest. Dean's head falls back as nails pierce bright into his right nipple.  
   
Pleasure so painful it leaves him limp courses through him. Sam tugs at his nipple, twists it, at the same time he swipes his thumbs over Dean's too sore cockhead. Dean's never had an Alpha handle him so rough or wild, and his stomach curdles even as his orgasm builds as he gasps into Sam's next sharp pinch.  
   
Sam moves to give Dean's other nipple the same treatment. As soon as he tugs at it, nails digging into peach flesh like fangs, Dean's cock twitches then spills. Sam practically wrings the come from him, twisting Dean's nipple and dick, forcing every bit of pleasure. It hurts more than it feels good but it leaves Dean's body aching bright and eager for more.  
   
He's left a ragdoll in Sam's lap, bouncing side to side with Sam's frenzied thrusts. Sam howls, more animal than man, and comes, searing and stinging Dean's battered insides. His knot flickers to life like a flame, burning Dean's sore asshole. Panting, Sam collapses back into the couch.  
   
Everything seems so loud in the silence of their still bodies. The TV news, morning birds, dishwasher: every sound is a thunder crack. Dean tries to focus his hazy brain on the crashing sounds booming from Sam's monumental flat screen.  
   
"How'd you afford that?"  
   
Dean doesn't know why he asks. He doesn't want to talk to Sam, let alone have an idle conversation with him about his television. But when Sam murmurs, "Hmm?", Dean nods towards the set and repeats, "That monster. How'd you get it?"  
   
"You wanna know about my TV?" Dean shrugs. "Okay. It, uh, it came with the house."  
   
"How'd you get the house?"  
   
Sam shifts underneath him. "You remember me telling you about the girl with the ghost problem?" Sam asks softly. Dean does; the girl who Sam helped, who jumped off a building and dragged some part of Sam with her. He nods. "Her dad owns this development. He offered to lease me a house after I helped his daughter. Offered to give it to me after she died."  
   
A strange offer, Dean thinks, but grief makes people strange.  
   
"I wasn't gonna take him up on it, but then I found out about you, and you ran..." Dean tenses, involuntarily clenching around Sam's knot. Sam shudders. Once Dean settles, he continues shakily. "I wanted to bring you back to someplace nice. Give you - make a home with you."  
   
Dean thinks  _Christ, Sammy_ , and doesn't know how to respond. Which doesn't stop him from responding.  
   
"I think I should go back on suppressants."  
   
He hasn't brought suppressants up since Sam poured his down the drain of that Missouri hotel room before dragging him to this suburban prison; he hasn't seen a point. The arguments he'd made when Sam was destroying pills fell on deaf ears, because Sam bought into the bullshit that Omega biology could only remain un-fucked by suppressants for so long, because Sam wanted to use the side effects of unstable emotions and intense heats to shape Dean into the Omega he's supposed to be.  
   
There was never an opportunity to sneak or swipe more pills. Dean was more focused on escaping Sam's physical and legal grasp than on finding a supplier or trying to convince Sam to take him to a physician.   
   
It's clear now that Dean can't break from Sam's hold. He doesn't know what it will take for Sam to sign his Alpha rights away, and he doesn't know how to hide from those who will enforce Sam's claim, from Sam himself. He doesn't know if he has what it takes to be free.  
   
He does know that neither of them can survive the side effects of abruptly stopping suppressant use. He can at least ease the heats before both of them melt completely.  
   
Sam's breathing shallows and Dean can feel his thighs strain. The expected argument doesn't come, though. "Okay, Dean," Sam says softly. He reaches for the remote and ratchets the TV volume. It's deafening.   
  
-  
   
Dr. Felice Padilla's office at the Padilla and Montez Omega Clinic is brimming with photographs.  
   
" - and this is Emily at her cousin's birthday party," Dr. Padilla is gushing, holding a picture of her niece and daughter arm wrestling in the grass. "Emily says you, Mr. Dean, are very good at arm wrestling."  
   
"I'm better at tea parties."  
   
She laughs pleasantly as she slides the frame back on her desk. "It's nice to finally meet you. Both of you," she adds with a sunshine smile in Sam's direction. The state of his face had her frowning earlier, and she'd turned soft eyes to Dean. Not accusing, of course, because no Omega would raise a hand to their Alpha; just understanding, an unspoken,  _I'm sorry your mate was hurt_. Dean's anger seethed so loudly he didn't even hear Sam's excuse.   
  
Sam's returned grin is tight. "Well your sister says you're the best Omega physician in town. We knew you were who to call."  
   
Dr. Padilla's expression dims. Dean's stomach drops before she even speaks, because he knew no doctor would be willing to write a 27-year-old Omega a suppressant prescription. He told Sam he would handle getting the supply, but Sam insisted on at least meeting with Dr. Padilla first.  
   
"I didn't want to tell you over the phone," she begins, motioning for them both to take a seat. They remain standing. She continues after a pause. "I'm sorry to have brought you all the way here, but when my assistant informed me of your reasons for visiting today, I thought I needed to speak with you both face to face."  
   
"Listen lady - "  
   
"Dean," Sam snaps. "Let's just hear what she has to say, okay?"  
   
"I already know what she's going to say. Exactly what I told you she was going to. Omega hormones are fragile and their bodies can't handle continued use of suppressants and why am I even asking, I have an Alpha, so all I should be worried about is popping out your pups anyway." He cuts his glare from Sam to the doctor, who is watching his tantrum unfold with gentle eyes. It ratchets his irritation to rage.  
   
"Dean - "  
   
"Please, Mr. Winchester," Dr. Padilla says mildly. "It's perfectly normal for an Omega whose experiencing hormonal re-balancing to have emotional outbursts."  
   
"Emotional outburst my  _ass_. This is discrimination! There's a pharmaceutical conspiracy to keep Omegas in heat and in the kitchen."  
   
"I understand you’re frustrated by your own biology, but - "  
   
" _My_ biology isn't the problem. The problem is Alpha's own the companies that fund the scientists who make the drugs to keep the Alpha's in control of the companies. The problem is Alpha's who pay to make pills that will keep their knots inflating are the same Alpha's paying to make sure better suppressants don't ever come on the market."  
   
"Dean, that's a little - "  
   
Sam's soothing words further Dean's fury. He turns to his brother, shoulders squared and eyes narrowed. "You know the company that makes Viagra, so Betas can keep it up? They're just a subsidiary of Shell Enterprises, that also just happens to own the subsidiary that makes Viagram and the other one that makes Viadon. You know who owns Shell, Sam? Who their stakeholders are, their researchers?  _Alphas_. Every fuckin' one of 'em!"  
   
"Now Dean, you can't make those kind of generalizations. There are plenty of Betas who work for Shell. Who work as doctors, like myself. There's no - "  
   
"Is that - that's true? About the companies?" Sam asks, interrupting Dr. Padilla’s soothing bullshit. Dean isn't surprised Sam didn't know. It's not common public knowledge, because it's not public record. Dean only became aware of the insidious connections by accident, on a hunt that led him into the CFO of Shell's skeleton filled closet.  
   
"Yes. But that's how businesses run. It's not a conspiracy to keep Omegas - "  
   
"From ever having a life outside of babies and knots. Right."  
   
Dean doesn't need to hear any more. He storms out of the office. Sam follows close behind.  
   
-  
  
In the parking lot, Sam throws Dean the keys.  
   
"I'm sorry," he says, voice firm with emotion, eyes on the ground, punching Dean's breath away, leaving Dean empty and off kilter. "For not knowing. For - "  
   
Dean's too raw for Sam's words. "I know," he cuts, quick and precise. "It's - " not okay, nothing is, but, "It doesn't matter. Let's just go home."  
  
-  
   
The ride home ( _that house is too full of rage and sorrow and their mingled sex to be home, Dean can't think of it as home, but -_ ) is shaped by their silence, heavy with every fucked up thing between and because of them. Dean is going to pop Zepplin in, but he doesn't.  
   
"What are they doing?" Sam asks as they turn onto their street. Dean glances at him then focuses ahead to see Will and his Alpha, Rachel, on their front lawn, Will's shoulders hunched and Rachel's hands waving wild.  
   
"Arguing?"  
   
"It looks a little more intense than an argument."  
   
It does - especially when Rachel, painted face twisted and hair flaming in the wind, grasps Will's shaking arm in a red clawed grip much too wild for a chick who can't be taller than 5'3" or weigh more than 120 pounds. Instinct slams the gas pedal to the floor, yanks the Impala into the driveway as Rachel yanks Will toward their house.  
   
Sam is out of the car first. He's yelling, "Hey! What the hell are you doing?" as Dean scrambles out of the car. The couple stops in their tracks. Rachel's hand tightens on Will's arm.  
   
"Will," Dean calls, catching Will's startled gaze. The kid is terrified. "You okay?"  
   
"He's fine. C'mon,  _sweetheart_." Rachel pulls Will closer, pulls Sam closer too.  
   
"You need to let him go. Right now, Rachel. Let him go."  
   
Rachel laughs. It's a cruel sound. "You're joking, right? An Alpha who can't even control his own Omega telling me how to handle mine? Mind your own business, Winchester."  
   
"I'm fine," Will says shakily, clearly anything but.  
   
"See? He's fine. Now if you'll excuse us - "  
   
"If you don't get your hands off of him, I'll take them off myself."  
   
Dean turns his wide-eyed to Sam, whose bristling with closed fists and a clenched jaw.  
   
"It's fine, really. Don't - "  
   
"You touch my Omega, I'll call the cops on your ass."  
   
"Not if I call them first," Sam growls, already fishing his cell phone from his jeans.  
   
Another laugh, louder, and Rachel releases her hold. Physically, anyway; even without Rachel's fingers digging half-moon marks into skin, Will stands rigid and afraid, and when she orders him in the house, he hurries inside. He doesn't spare Dean a glance.   
  
-  
   
The cops can't file a report because they didn't see what happened. Department of Human Services can't file a report without one from the police.  
   
"She didn't hit him, exactly - okay, at  _all_ , but she was physical and she hurt him. It doesn't matter how  _big_ either one of them are, she - it was clear that he was scared, that has to count for something. That's not just my _inference_ , I  _saw_ \- no, Brady, c'mon. Fuck."  
   
Sam snaps his phone shut and tosses it on the counter with the force of his frustration. "Brady said his mom couldn't do anything. None of the partners could. I mean, without a police report or any real evidence..."  
   
"Even with  _real_ evidence," Dean sneers ( _real evidence, in skin, sickly yellow and mottled purple and blood blue_ ), "it's not like - nothing would happen."  
   
"She would have her claim rescinded. Will wouldn't be trapped with an abusive Alpha. That's not nothing."  
   
Dean sighs, shifting in his seat at the kitchen table. "C'mon, Sammy. You're studying all that fancy law bullshit. You know how impossible it is to show an Alpha's unfit for Omega ownership.  There's only been, what, a couple hundred cases of rescinded claims in the past 50 years? No judge wants taking a whiny Omega from a good, upstanding Alpha on their record."   
  
Each word has him angrier and more resigned than the last. He has to grit his teeth to stop his frustration from growing. When he looks up, Sam is watching him with an expression he can't place.  
   
"How do you know all that?"  
   
"Uh, because I can read," Dean miffs, offended. "I can research just as good as you y'know."  
   
"Did you - I mean, were you researching because of me? To - ?"  
   
More frustration flows, darker and sharper, and Dean doesn't pull the force of his punch when he says, "Yeah, Sammy. But no need to worry. Your claim is air tight."  
   
Guilt springs bloody and immediate in Dean's chest. He hates it, hates himself, hates Sam. His words are deserved, and if there is cruelty in his voice it's a cruelty that is honest and has been earned. It's justified, like his rage, like the marks Sam's face.  
   
Like climbing on Sam's knot when his brother was too blinded by sorrow and Omega scent to say no.  
   
Dean tries to shake the sickness growing in his stomach, remind himself that Sam had no right to drag Dean here, claim and mate him. Sam had no right to deny him.  
   
 _(Sam didn't, didn't, didn't. Did he?)_  
   
Sick, Dean sags in his seat.  
   
"I'm gonna go call one of my professors," Sam says tightly. "See if they can think of anything."  
  
Sam turns. There is a sorry on Dean's tongue. He tries to bite it back, swallow it into the black hole of his belly, but it gurgles through his throat, sour and sickening as bile.  
   
"Sam, I'm - "  
   
"It's fine, Dean. I figured you - I mean I didn't, actually, but I should've thought you'd - "  
   
"I'm sorry." The words cut through him, leaves him split in half and bleeding ugly things over the gleaming kitchen floor. Immediately, he wants them back.  
   
"It's - I told you. It's fine."  
   
"Not about... I mean, last night. This morning."  
   
"What do you have to be sorry for?"  
   
Dean swallows, tastes nothing. "You didn't want it. The way it happened, I mean. I knew it and I - "  
   
"No." The force of the word reverberates through Dean's bones. Sam moves forward, all power and fury and shudders. "You don't - You can't possibly think that. Dean. I could've said no, I could've left. I had a choice." Quietly, hatefully, he adds, "It wasn't like with you."  
   
Dean feels like he's dying; like he's dead. He drops his gaze to the floor while revulsion and sorrow blacken then consume him. Sam grabs his phone, then heads upstairs.  
  
  
-  
   
If Sam says he shouldn’t be sorry, he shouldn’t be. Sam shouldn’t even have to say it. Apology has no place in Dean’s heavy gut, his sick swollen throat. He shouldn’t be sorry.   
   
( _He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he is_ ).  
  
-  
   
What sicknesses and sorrows whiskey can't kill, Dean bashes with busy hands.  
   
Will quits the shop. Is forced to, Dean knows, hungry fisted for Alpha blood with it, but Joe isn’t concerned the Omega doesn’t show up, doesn’t call. Dean doesn’t bother to tell him about the domestic drama he and Sam saw play out on the front lawn; he just picks up extra shifts, unpaid, because what the fuck does he need money for.  
   
When he’s not working, he’s knocking on his neighbors doors, undoing the bad reputation he’d worked so hard to build with charming smiles and store bought pies. He’d rather eat the aluminum tins holding flaky crusts warm, but shopping the streets for counterfeit suppressants doesn’t impress him as the better option.  
   
The alleys here are cleaner than other alleys he’s slinked in; they’re brimming with undercover units, too. Pharmaceutical goons with Shell and Orion and Lillehammer logos on their security ID’s, sniffing out the desperate Omegas who are snatching dimes from corporate pockets by buying pills from unlicensed drug pushers as opposed to licensed ones, who are little worms in little cracks of Alpha-centric society.  
   
His body isn’t freaking the fuck out anymore, having settled as jarringly as it boiled over, but his search for a suppressant source isn’t any less frenzied. The bruises on Sam’s face fade, but Dean’s knuckles don’t sting any less. Haywire hormones have him in a constant state of fearful what if’s.  
   
( _What if he has another heat, just as razor wire twisting; what if he can’t curdle his blood hate and blood lust again, climbs on Sam’s knot to punish them both again; what if Sam’s stupid tender knotbrain hemorrhages at Dean’s slick scent again, what if Sam decides to so kindly give Dean what his Omega body, spirit, needs by stripping away his voices again, what if Sam – what if he –_ )  
   
Dean knocks on every Omega family door in the neighborhood, the neighboring neighborhood and the trailer park that rests on the outskirts of that one. He doesn’t find one Omega over 25 whose still on the pill, and no Omega he finds on it is willing to help Dean get his hands on suppressants of his own.  
   
In the midst of his frustration, in his Herculean effort to not think about his brother’s betrayal or his own, he does notice his neat little suburban prison isn’t as neat as he once thought. It’s slanted in the corners. Jagged. Strange.  
   
Two Omega’s have heart attacks within a week of each other – one day after Dean speaks to them. Dogs from half of the families run away, and groups of cats roam the streets at night, mewling sickly deep and scratching doors as if they’re possessed by not very intimidating demons. Dean starts watching the news, sees crime rates have gone up.  
   
It’s weird, pulls at his focus, but he welcomes the distractions. Until he doesn’t.  
   
-  
   
Emily goes missing on a Thursday.  
   
The police don’t start searching until the evening, but Dean and Sam are knocking down doors five minutes after Emily’s Alpha calls to see if she’s with them, says her baby wasn’t in her bed this morning with a choked voice.  
   
They case the neighborhood, the mall, all five parks within a three mile radius, the waterpark that’s 30 minutes away. Sam skips his classes, calls into his internship, and lends Dean a suit. Dean unearths a few of their fake badges ( _it hurts to touch them and they feel as if they were crafted a millennia ago, in another of Dean’s lives_ ) and they conduct follow up interviews with teachers, Emily’s doctors, the priest at her church. Sam no longer bears the marks of Dean’s rage, which helps.  
        
In the still moments between intimidating possible witnesses and soothing Emily’s parents, Dean breathes and feels years dissolve in his lungs. He moves in rhythm with Sam, one machine generated by blood and bond. They harden in compliment to one another, soften in unison, finish each other’s thoughts and have no need to speak them.  
   
It’s a betrayal to Emily and her families sorrow fear, but Dean thrums in the hunt. There’s been a hole, black and bottomless as grief, eating him alive, and now he stuffs it with the purpose he’s been missing, the partner he’s been aching for.  
   
Alpha and master and victim all fade, fainter with each passing day Emily isn’t found, and Dean’s vision is filled with his brother. His brother, the one he remembers, whose mind is sharp and heart beats awful on his sleeve and divides his time between worrying for Emily and worrying for Dean’s sleep dry bones.  
   
His brother, who knocks frantically on his bedroom door five days after Emily’s gone missing, screaming for him.  
   
Sam is on his knees, fingers pulling at his hair, when Dean opens the door.  
   
“Sammy.” Panic terror grips Dean’s chest. He falls to his knees, tries to leech Sam’s pain with his hands petting Sam’s hair, tries to calm him. “It’s okay, Sammy. I’ve got you, I’m here – ”  
   
“I know where she is.”  
   
Dean stills. “Emily?” Sam nods, winces in agony, hugs himself around the middle. “Where? Where, Sam, where the hell – ”  
   
“Apartments. They’re – I don’t think they’re far. There’s a fountain in front of them, and, uh, the doors are blue. No, red. They’re all red.”  
   
Sam doesn’t paint a vivid picture, but Dean doesn’t need much detail to know he’s describing Pleasantview Apartments, less than nine miles away.  
   
“Okay.” Dean moves quick, ready to bound down the stairs and slam the Impala’s tires into the road, no time for police or family.  
   
But Sam reaches for him. “I need to go with you.”  
   
“You can barely stand, and the longer we wait, the longer – ”  
   
“She’s safe. I promise. And you need me.”  
   
Sam’s eyes are still unfocused with pain, though he’s no longer shuddering in it. “How do you know she’s safe? How do you even know where she is?” Sam doesn’t answer, drawing Dean’s frustration into anger. “ _Sam_.”  
   
“I’ll explain, but later, okay? You just – you have to trust me.”  
   
It’s not okay, and Dean can’t trust Sam, who is a betrayer of the darkest, cruelest kind, who can never be trusted with anything precious to Dean again. There is nothing vile in Sam’s pain glittering eyes, though: only an earnest, earth old plea.    
   
Dean doesn’t trust the swine sickness in Sam’s brain, can’t trust Sam the Alpha – but he can trust Sammy, the baby brother who just wants to be a hero too. He grits his teeth around a “fine” before helping Sam to his feet. “But I’m driving.”  
   
-  
   
In building D, apartment 23, they find Emily shaking in a bedroom closet.  
   
She cries Dean’s name as soon as the doors are open, launching herself into his bewildered arms, curling her trembling little fingers into the nape of his neck. He sighs, every breath of relief leaving his body. He inhales, fills himself with doubt and fear and shame.  
   
He looks to Sam, whose collapsed in the middle of the room, watching them with eyes both reassured and terrified.  
   
-  
   
Things before Emily’s disappearance were strange. The night they bring Emily home, things become something Dean can’t define.  
   
Emily’s parents are overwhelmed to have their daughter home. Not so overwhelmed that they can’t put together a ‘thank you’ dinner for everyone who helped bring their girl back home, with the Winchesters as the guest of honor.  
   
Dean can understand that – people diving into action to ignore the trembling reactions inside. What he can’t understand is the lack of questions. No one asks how Sam and Dean found her, assuming the boys struck lucky. The investigators who worked the case don’t corner them. If it were Dean, he would assume he and Sam were the ones who kidnapped Emily in the first place, but the thought doesn’t seem to occur to anyone else.  
   
When Dr. Padilla approaches him at the party, he’s almost glad: finally, someone to grill him. But Emily’s aunt doesn’t ask him anything. She hugs him, tight and unwelcome, and slips a bottle of suppressants into his back pocket.  
   
He sneaks into the bathroom to pop a pill. It doesn’t taste like relief, or safety, or any of the things he thought it would taste like. It tastes like nothing.  
   
-  
   
The Winchester’s aren’t the only ones not pressed. Emily says she doesn’t know anything about her captors, and everyone accepts it. Her parents don’t push her and the cops don’t seem interested in coaxing answers, even in the days following her return.  
   
Dean is the only one asking questions. He can see Sam has the same, but he won’t speak them, afraid of having to answer. Dean doesn’t give a fuck. Exhaustion and confusion have mingled into one gray thing, overtaking Dean’s being.  
   
-  
   
The morning after the crazy night before, Dean barges into Sam’s room, waking his brother with a swat to the head.  
   
Dean is asking, “What the fucking fuck was yesterday?” before Sam’s eyes are fully open.  
   
“Ah. Dean – ”  
   
“You said you’d explain later, and it’s later. So you better start explaining what the Hell.”  
   
He crosses his arms as Sam sighs, pushes one knuckle into a sleep shut eye and pushes himself to a sitting position with the other. He waits.  
   
“Start talking, Sammy. How did you know where Emily was?”  
   
“I...had a dream.” Sam says it simply, but his eyes belie the words weight.  
   
“A dream. So, what? You had, like, déjà vu?”  
   
“No, not déjà vu. A vision.”  
   
Dean feels his entire brain squint. “A vision?” he repeats, testing the statement. It feels wrong in his mouth.  
   
Sam shifts, pulls his knees to his chest, looks anywhere but Dean. “They’re like dreams. I mean, I dream them, but they’re real.”  
   
“Okay, hold the fuckin’ phone. You’ve had these visions before?”  
   
“Yeah.” Sam breathes the word like it hurts. “That’s how I knew it was real.”  
   
There’s too much for Dean to absorb. He begins to pace, tries to shake Sam’s words from his skin before they sink inside. But dark things are already blooming in Dean’s mind, and he can’t stop himself from digging the grave deeper. “How many of these things have you had before?”  
   
“I don’t know. I thought they were just weird dreams at first, but then…”  
   
“Then what, Sam? What happened?”  
   
Gaze wet and rising, Sam implores Dean’s compassion before answering. Dean tries to stop it from blooming, but it’s more difficult now than ever not to feel those bone deep big brother feelings, the ones that keep jerking Dean from his uncomfortable plains of numbness and rage.  
   
“When you ran,” Sam begins heavily, dragging the cold pit in Dean’s belly even further. “When I was following you, I dreamed about you meeting up with a demon about Yellow Eyes. I didn’t think anything of it but then I lost your trail and I – I didn’t know what else to do. So I went to Phoenix.”  
   
Dean remembers Phoenix. He’d gotten a dead end lead there.  
   
“You were there, Dean. With the same guy I’d seen in my dream.”  
   
It might as well be a slap to the face, a fist to the heart. “Christ, Sammy.” Dean walks to the window. Nothing but the world exists outside, and that’s not enough to make sense of this, to make amends. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
   
“Because I didn’t want to become a  _case_ for you,” Sam grits, force of the words startling them both. Quieter, he adds, “I was already trying to get you to stop hunting. I thought if I told you, you’d never stop. Not with your own personal hunting GPS.”  
   
“You should’ve told me,” Dean says. He ignores the oxygen bubble sting of guilt, the  _you know that isn’t all I think of you, Sammy, I_ – that beats stupidly in his throat.  
   
“Yeah, well.”  
   
They’re both quiet for several moments. Dean’s brain is hot with information overload. His chest is heavy with something foreboding. He can’t form his mouth around the feelings that well, but he knows they colored dark with doubt and fear.  
   
“What do you think they mean?” Sam asks, child soft and unsure.  
   
“I don’t know,” Dean answers honestly. He doesn’t add that it can’t be good.  
   
He turns from the window to Sam, who is staring at his hands as if he doesn’t know what he’s looking at.  
   
Neither does Dean.


End file.
